
Class LBlbO" ' 



Fkl-;SKNTli:D BY 



NATIONAL CONFERENCE 






ON J. O^ 

SECONDARY EDUCATION 

AND 

ITS PROBLEMS 



HELD AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 

1 

OCTOBER 30 AND 31, 1903 



STENOGRAPHIC REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS 
EDITED BY V. K. FROULA 



Published by the University 
EvANSTON, 1904 



'I 



l^ Yi'i-^ 



MADE BY 

ROBERT SMITH PRINTQNS CO. 

LANSING, MICH. 



TL^ - 'i^y 



STENOGRAPHICALLY REPORTED BY ROY E. FULLER 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Introduction v 

Invitation to Fisk Celebration , . x 

Announcement of Subjects xi 

Staternent About Northwestern Academy xiii 

Greeting to the Members of the Conference by the President of the 

University 1 

Report of the Proceedings. 

Opening Address — "The Present Situation in Secondary Education." 3 
Alfred E. Stearns, Principal of Phillips Academy, Andover, Massa- 
chusetts. 

I. What is the Place and Function of the Endowed Academy or of the 

Private High School for Boys and Girls in our Present System of 
Education? 
Discussion: 
Arthur Gilman, Director of the Gilman School, Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts ,17 

Mrs. May Wright Sewall, Principal of the Girls' Classical School, 

Indianapolis, Indiana 26 

J. Henry Bartlett, Superintendent of the Friends' Select School, 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 34 

Homer T. Fuller, President of Drury College, Springfield, Missouri 38 
General Discussion. 

II. What is the True Function of the Free Public High School? 
Discussion: 

William J. S. Bryan, Principal of the St. Louis High School, St. 

Louis, Missouri 60 

C. P. Cary, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Madison, 

Wisconsin 55 

Charles De Garmo, Professor of Education, Cornell University, 

Ithaca, New York 60 

John E. Boodin, Professor of Philosophy, Iowa College, Grinnell, 

Iowa 63 

Frederick E. Bolton, Professor of Education, State University of 

Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 68 

A. F. Nightingale, Superintendent of Schools, Cook County, Chi- 
cago, Illinois 77 

B. F. Buck, Principal of the Lake View High School, Chicago, Illinois 83 
General Discussion. 

iii 



III. What is the Effect of the System of Accrediting Schools by the 

Universities upon the High School and its Development? 
Discussion: 
Edwin G. Dexter, Professor of Education, University of Illinois, 

Urbana, Illinois 91 

J. F. Brown, Inspector of Schools, State University of Iowa, Iowa 

City, Iowa 98 

H. A. Hollister, Inspector of High Schools, University of Illinois, 

Urbana, Illinois 105 

General Discussion. 

Anniversary Oration Commemorating the Completion of Thirty Years 
of Service by Rev. Herbert Franklin Fisk as Principal of the 
Northwestern University Academy. 

Hon. Henry Sherman Boutell 116 

Address of Congratulation from the College Faculty. 
Professor Amos W. Patten 142 

IV. What May the Public High School do for the Moral and Religious 

Training of its Pupils? 
Discussion: 

F. C. Doan, Professor of Philosophy and Education, Ohio Univer- 
sity, Athens, Ohio 144 

George A. Coe, Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, 
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 163 

M. Vincent O'Shea, Professor of the Science and Art of Education, 
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin .... 163 

Arnold Tompkins, Principal of the Chicago Normal School, Chicago, 

Illinois 166 

General Discussion. 

V. Some Serious Defects in our High School System. 

(a) Too Many Women Teachers. 

Richard L. Sandwick, Principal of Deerfield Township High School, 

Highland Park, Illinois ^ 182 

(d) Growing Encroachment of the Demands of Social Life upon 

Serious Study. 
J. E. Armstrong, Principal of Englewood High School, Chicago, 

Illinois 191 

(c) Growing Tendency to Imitate Certain Characteristic Features 

of College Life; Fraternities, Development of Competitive Sports, 

etc. 
Henry L. Boltwood, Principal of Evanston Township High School . 196 
General Discussion 200 

Address — Where to Place the Emphasis in Education. 
Herbert Franklin Fisk, Principal of Northwestern University 
Academy 209 

Index 214 



INTRODUCTION. 



When Northwestern University decided in the spring of 1903 to 
celebrate in some appropriate way the completion by Dr. Herbert 
Franklin Fisk of thirty years of service as principal of the North- 
western University Academy, it seemed proper to associate with 
the celebration some more important features than the ordinary ele- 
ments of congratulatory oratory, torchlight processions, banquets 
and receptions which have come to be indispensable in all such 
functions. It was consequently resolved that without neglecting 
these features, the celebration should be made a unique one by call- 
ing a national conference to discuss the important topics relating to 
secondary education. It was intended that the Conference should 
be quite different from the ordinary teachers' convention or associa- 
tion called to discuss purely pedagogical questions in the narrow 
sense. It did not propose to deal with the problem of teaching arith- 
metic or algebra or Latin or Greek, nor with the best methods of 
integrating the branches of study which constitute the curriculum 
nor was it to discuss the respective merits of the classics and modern 
languages, or natural science as means of literary culture. It was 
decided to leave all such questions relating to pedagogy in the nar- 
row sense of the term to one side, and concentrate the interest of 
the Conference upon what may be called the broader elements of 
educational statesmanship involved in the organization of a national 
system of secondary education. 

The Conference was to deal with such topics as the relation of 
the endowed academy, the private high school and the seminary and 
private preparatory school to the public high school as an essen- 
tial element in the general scheme of secondary education. It was 
to raise the question of the proper relations between the high school 
and the college; whether, for example, the high school should be 
considered primarily as a preparatory school for the college and 
university, or whether it should be regarded as an independent in- 
stitution with its own ends and aims, and if the latter were true, 
whether the college and the university should adapt themselves 



frankly to this situation and accept the curriculum which the high 
school works out as most suitable for its own purposes as a satis- 
factory training for the college and university. It was proposed 
further to discuss the question of religious instruction in public and 
private schools and to treat in some detail the defects and abuses to 
be found in our present system of secondary education. 

A list of suggested topics was sent to leading high school and 
academy principals asking their opinion as to which would be of 
most interest in such a Conference. As a result of these questions, 
the following program was prepared : 



PROGRAM OF EXERCISES. 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1903. 

8:00 P. M. 

Reception by President and Mrs. James to Members of the Conference, 2204 
Orrington Avenue, Evanston. 

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1903. 
9 : 00 A. M. 

First Session of the Conference; on Secondary Education and its Probi<ems, 

Fisk Hall, University Campus. 
Chapei, Service: 

Led by the University Chaplain. 
Greeting to the Members of the Conference by the President of the University. 
Opening Address — "The Present Situation in Secondary Education." 

Alfred E. Stearns, Principal of Phillips Academy, Andover, Massa- 
chusetts. 

I. 

What is the Place and Function of the Endowed Academy or of the Private 
High School for Boys and Girls in our Present System of Education? 
Discussion : 

Homer T. Fuller, President of Drury College, Springfield, Missouri. 
Arthur Gilman, Director of the Gilman School, Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts. 
Mrs. May Wright Sewall, Principal of the Girls' Classical School, In- 
dianapolis, Indiana. 
J. Henry Bartlett, Superintendent of the Friends' Select School, Phila- 
delphia, Pennsylvania. 
General Discussion. 



12 : 00 M. 
Luncheon to the Delegates in Fisk Hall. 

1 : 00 P. M. 
Second Session of the Conference. 

II. 
What is the True Function of the Free Public High School? 

Discussion : 

William J. S. Bryan, Principal of the St. Louis High School, St. Louis, 
Missouri. 

B. F. Buck, Principal of the Lake View High School, Chicago, Illinois. 

C. P. Cary, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Madison, 
Wisconsin. 

Charles De Garmo, Professor of Education, Cornell University, Ithaca, 

New York. 
John E. Boodin, Professor of Philosophy, Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa. 
Frederick E. Bolton, Professor of Education, State University of Iowa, 

Iowa City, Iowa. 
W. W. Folwell, Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota, 

Minneapolis, Minnesota. 
A. F. Nightingale, Superintendent of Schools, Cook County, Chicago, 

Illinois. 
General Discussion. 

III. 

What is the Effect of the System of Accrediting Schools by the Universities 
upon the High School and its Development? 

Discussion : 

Edwin G. Dexter, Professor of Education, University of Illinois, 

Urbana, Illinois. 
A. W. Tressler, Inspector of High Schools, University of Wisconsin, 

Madison, Wisconsin. 
J. F. Brown, Inspector of Schools, State University of Iowa, Iowa 

City, Iowa. 
H. A. Hollister, Inspector of High Schools, University of Illinois, 

Urbana, Illinois. 
General Discussion. 

8 : CO P. M. 

first METHODIST CHURCH, EVANSTON. 

Anniversary Oration Commemorating the Completion of Thirty Years of 
Service by Rev. Herbert Franklin Fisk as Principal of the North- 
western University Academy. 
Hon. Henry Sherman Boutell. 

Address of Congratulation from the College Faculty. 
Professor Amos W. Patten. 



9 : 30 P. M. 
Reception to the Alumni of Northwestern University Academy by the Literary 

Societies, Fisk Hall. 
Reception to the Members of the Conference by the Evanston Club. 



SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1903- 

9 : 00 A. M. 
Third and Final Session of the Conference. 

IV. 

What May the Public High School do for the Moral and Religious Training 

of its Pupils? 
Discussion : 

F. C. Doan, Professor of Philosophy and Education, Ohio University, 

Athens, Ohio. 
George A. Coe, Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, North- 
western University, Evanston, Illinois. 
Arnold Tompkins, Principal of the Chicago Normal School, Chicago, 

Illinois. 
M. Vincent O'Shea, Professor of the Science and Art of Education, 
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. 

General Discussion. 

V. 

Some Serious Defects in our High School System, 
(o) Too Many Women Teachers. 
Richard L. Sandwick, Principal of Deerfield Township High School, 

Highland Park, Illinois. 
(&) Growing Encroachment of the Demands of Social Life Upon 

Serious Study. 
J. E. Armstrong, Principal of Englewood High School, Chicago, Illinois. 
A. J. Volland, Principal of Central High School, Grand Rapids, 

Michigan, 
(c) Growing Tendency to Imitate Certain Characteristic Features of 

College Life; Fraternities, Development of Competitive Sports, etc. 
Henry L. Boltwood, Principal of Evanston Township High School. 

Generai, Discussion. 

1 : 00 P. M. 
Luncheon to the Delegates in Fisk Hall. 

2 : 00 P. M. 

Alumni Reunion at Fisk Hall. 

Responses : 

For the Alumni — William H. Crawford, President of Allegheny Col- 
lege, Meadville, Pennsylvania. 



Roll Call by Classes. 

For the Faculty — Joseph L. Morse, Assistant Principal of Northwestern 

University Academy. 
For the Trustees — Frank P. Crandon. 
For the Students — George Parkinson Howard. 

For the Delegates— William F. King, President of Cornell College, Mt. 
Vernon, Iowa. 

N. C. Dougherty, Superintendent of Schools, 
Peoria, Illinois. 
Address : 

Rev. Herbert Franklin Fisk, Principal of Northwestern University 
Academy, Evanston. 

8 : 30 P. M. 
Anniversary Reception to Principal and Mrs. Fisk, Orrington Lunt Library, 
University Campus. 



SUNDAY, NOVEMBER i, 1903. 
9 : 00 A. M. 

PISK HALL. 

Reunion of Christian Associations. 

Harry B. Gough, President of Hedding College, Abingdon, Illinois, 
Leader. 

3 : 00 P. M. 

FIRST METHODIST CHURCH, EVANSTON. 

Rev. Charles J. Little, D.D., LL.D., President of Garrett Biblical In- 
stitute, Presiding. 
Anniversary Sermon. 

Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus, D.D., President of Armour Institute. 

The program was carried out exactly as announced, except that 
President Fuller of Drury College was called away at the opening 
of the Conference by serious illness in his family, and Professor 
Tressler of the University of Wisconsin, and Principal A. J. Vol- 
land of Grand Rapids, Michigan, found themselves unavoidably de- 
tained at the last moment. 

As matters of interest which should be of permanent record, we 
print as a part of this introduction the invitation sent by the Uni- 
versity to high school principals to participate in the National Con- 
ference on Secondary education, as also the invitation sent by the 
University to attend the Fisk Celebration, and with this the state- 
ment in regard to the Academy at Northwestern University which 
accompanied that invitation. 



i873 1903 

The Trustees, Faculty and Alumni 
of the Academy of Northwestern University 

cordially invite you to he present 
on the Thirtieth and Thirty-first of October 

Nineteen Hundred Three 

at the celebration of the completion of thirty 

years of service as Principal by the 

Rev. Herbert Franklin Fisk D.D., LL.D. 

The favor of an early answer is requested. 

Address: 

Secretary of the Academy 
Northwestern University 
Evanston, Illinois 



NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY. 

Evanston- Chicago . 

PRESIDBNT'S OFFICE. 
My Dear Sir : 

A National Conference on Secondary Education and its Prob- 
lems has been called by Northwestern University to meet in Evans- 
ton-Chicago on Friday and Saturday, October 30th and 31st, 1903, 
at the same time as the celebration of the Fisk anniversary. 

You are cordially invited to attend. An interesting program is 
being prepared and men of prominence in secondary and higher edu- 
cation will discuss among other problems the topics indicated below. 

You will observe that the Conference is to concern itself pri- 
marily, not with pedagogical problems in the narrower sense — such 
as proper methods of teaching individual branches, or the arrange- 
ment of subjects in the curriculum — ^but rather with those broader 
questions of general educational policy in which other intelligent 
citizens, as well as the teacher, must take an abiding interest be- 
cause they go to the very root of our social and educational life. 

We shall be glad to have suggestions as to other questions which 
in your judgment it would be well to consider at this Conference. 

An early reply as to whether you can probably attend will be 
greatly appreciated. 

Faithfully yours, 

Edmund J. James. 

The following is the list of topics suggested : 

I. In view of the remarkable and ever-increasing growth of the 
public high school what is the place of the private high school or 
endowed academy in our system of education ? 

II. Is it desirable that the public high school should assume 
any responsibility for the moral and religious training of its pupils ? 
and if so, what is possible and advisable in this matter ? 

III. Should the public high school be looked upon primarily 
as a school to prepare young men and women for the college and 



university? or should it be viewed as an independent school with 
its own important ends and aims, to which preparation for higher 
institutions must be strictly secondary ? 

IV. If the latter is the correct view what is the effect of the 
system of accredited schools adopted by the state universities and 
the leading private universities in the Mississippi Valley ? Does not 
this system tend to subordinate the high school and force it into 
the position of a mere preparatory school for these institutions ? 

V. If this view of the independent character of the high school 
is a correct one, should the college frankly recognize the altered 
situation and accept any curriculum which the high school works 
out as suitable for its purposes as also suitable preparation for the 
college and university? 

VI. Should the public high schools adopt the policy of dropping 
Greek as a required or optional study in the high school course, rele- 
gating this subject entirely to the college and university, thus put- 
ting it, in a sense, in the same category with Hebrew and similar 
languages ? 

VII. In case this plan is adopted should the private high school 
and endowed academy and seminary follow the same system? or 
should they attempt to preserve for Latin and Greek their traditional 
place of importance in the preparatory work? 

VIII. If the academy, including the private high school and 
other preparatory schools, should insist on maintaining Greek, what 
would be the effect upon its future development of such a distinct 
separation from the functions and ideals of the public high school? 

IX. Does it lie in the interest of our high schools and academies 
to imitate the social features of the college, including the fraternity 
system? If not, how can headway be made against the increasing 
encroachment of social demands upon the serious work of the high 
school ? 

X. Is it feasible to arouse that particular kind of interest in the 
public high school supported by taxation which will lead public- 
spirited citizens to contribute to the better equipment and more ade- 
quate support of these schools as they now contribute to the main- 
tenance of the academies and seminaries ? 

Address all replies to : 
Secretary of the Academy, 
Northwestern University, 
Evanston, Illinois. 



THE ACADEMY OF NORTHWESTERN 
UNIVERSITY. 



The Academy of Northwestern University is one of that long 
line of institutions for secondary education, which, beginning with 
the Phillips Academies at Andover and Exeter, has stretched into 
every state in the union, and has done for American education a 
service similar to that of the great public schools of England — such 
as Eton, Harrow, and Rugby — or of the great Historical Lycees and 
Gymnasia of France and Germany. 

The Academy has, of course, no such long history as even the 
youngest of these great schools. It is scarcely seventy years, indeed, 
since Chicago itself was permanently settled. But for nearly fifty 
years of this time the Academy has performed the services of a 
secondary school of high rank for the people of Illinois and the 
Great Northwest. It was founded at a time when the public high 
schools in this region were few and far between, and when the col- 
leges and universities, also few in numbers and with meager equip- 
ment, found it necessary to associate with themselves schools of 
secondary grade, which could offer a good preliminary training for 
the work of college and university, as well as a general training 
for those who could not attend college. For a long time the Acad- 
emy and similar institutions were the best maintained secondary 
schools of the community, but with the growth of the high schools, 
supported by public taxation and free to all citizens of the support- 
ing towns, the special function of this kind of school has changed. 
From being practically the only schools where a good general pre- 
paratory education of secondary grade can be obtained, the academies 
have become largely a supplementary element in our scheme of 
education, though their independent function is by no means an un- 
important one. 

Many institutions of this class have declined in attendance with- 
in the last few years, and finally disappeared. Many of those still 
remaining have found it very difficult to adapt themselves to the 
changed conditions, and are finding an increasing difficulty in ob- 



taining that support in endowments and attendance necessary to 
their continuance. 

The Academy of Northwestern University, however, partly 
owing to its favorable location in one of the most beautiful college 
towns in the United States, on a campus rivaling in beauty the sites 
of the most famous seats of learning in this country or in Europe; 
partly owing to the advantages of close supervision by the faculty 
of a great university ; partly owing to the skill and vigor of its own 
administration, has remained a school of large attendance and use- 
fulness during all these years. It has found and kept a place, and 
that an important one, in the scheme of education in the Mississippi 
Valley. Its function has been partly as a supplement to the three- 
year high schools, whose students desire to continue their prepara- 
tion for college and must leave home to obtain the necessary facili- 
ties ; partly as an advanced secondary school for those communities 
not yet able to support high schools; partly as a secondary school 
of high rank distinguished by the special attention given to the 
study of the ancient classics in a section of the country where the 
forces working against such study are numerous and powerful; 
partly as a school where more careful and direct attention can be 
given to the moral and religious training of its pupils than public 
sentiment permits to the high school. It has done pre-eminent service 
in the way of preparing students for college and the professional 
school while not neglecting the interests of those pupils who go 
directly into life from its halls. 

For over forty-five years the Academy has continued its work. 
During this time fully seven thousand young people have enjoyed 
its opportunities; while the registration for the past year of nearly 
five hundred pupils demonstrates in a marked way that there is still 
a demand for its services. 

Although its attendance, as is natural in the case of such schools, 
is drawn very largely from the immediately surrounding states, pu- 
pils have also come in limited numbers from nearly every state in 
the Union and from many foreign countries. Twenty-eight different 
states and four foreign countries were represented during the past 
year. 

Like the other leading schools in the Mississippi Valley, it has 
been for a generation past a co-educational school, though the num- 
ber of girls has rarely constituted more than a third of the total 
registration, sinking many times to less than a sixth. 

One of the distinct sources of strength to the Academy has been 



the continuity of its administration. For the larger part of its forty- 
five years of existence it has been under the control and direction 
of the same man, a man whose record as principal of this Academy 
entitles him to rank by the side of the greatest head masters of sec- 
ondary schools,- public or private, in this country or in Europe. 

The Rev. Herbert Franklin Fisk, D.D., LL.D., was born Sep- 
tember 25, 1840, at Stoughton, Massachusetts. He prepared for col- 
lege at the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, one 
of the most famous of the New England Academies. He graduated 
with the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University at 
Middletown in i860. He was a teacher of Latin and Mathematics 
at the Delaware Literary Institute, Franklin, New York, 1 860-1 861 ; 
principal of the Shelburne Academy, Vermont, 1 861 -1863; teacher 
of Latin and Greek, Cazenovia Seminary, New York, 1863-1867; 
teacher of Latin and Greek, Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Massa- 
chusetts, 1867-1868; principal of the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, 
Lima, New York, 1868- 1873 ; principal of the Academy of North- 
western University from 1873 to the present time. 

In 1888 he was made Professor of Pedagogy in the College of 
Liberal Arts of Northwestern University. He received the degree of 
Master of Arts from Wesleyan University in 1863 ; the degree of 
Doctor of Divinity from Wesleyan University in 1888; the degree 
of Doctor of Laws from Allegheny College in 1899. 

Principal Fisk has been not merely a good classical scholar nor 
merely a good classical teacher. He has been a forceful, vigorous, 
active element in the life of every one of the five thousand pupils 
who have been registered here since he became Principal. His 
wide interest in educational problems and educational science, is 
indicated by the fact that in addition to his duties as Principal of the 
Academy he has conducted for some years past the courses in the 
history and theory of education in the College, showing an accurate 
acquaintance with the broader views and wider outlook of modern 
educational theory and policy. 

His has been a grand record and one of which the Alumni of 
this school and friends of education everywhere may well be proud. 
It is a record which we can put by the side of that of other great 
principals of secondary schools— with Abbott and Taylor and Ban- 
croft and Steele. His is a career which we may properly call to the 
attention of young teachers who are entering upon secondary work, 
as worthy of their emulation. It is a striking demonstration of the 
power and dignity which may come to the principal of the secondary 



school, if he only conceives his office and his opportunity in a large 
way. It should be an inspiration to every high school principal 
and to every head master of an academy or other secondary school 
in the United States. 



FIRST SESSION. 



Friday, October 30, 9 :oo a. m. 
Chapel Service led by University Chaplain, Dr. A. W. Patten. 

Dr. Patten: 

We will be led in prayer by Rev. Dr. Berle of the Union Park 
Congregational Church. 

Dr. Berime;: 

Almighty God, our Father who art in Heaven, we are glad to 
render to Thee this morning the free and unforced tribute of our 
hearts because we know that Thou art the rewarder of them that 
diligently seek Thee. Thou art not very far from any one of 
us and in Thee we move and have our being. We pray Thee that 
Thou wilt accept the ardor and incense of our hearts, that we 
may render to God what is due to God through the Father of minds 
with whom there can be no variation or shadow of turning from 
His children and creatures in the earth. We ask Thy blessing upon 
the assembly which has called us together. We pray that Thou 
wilt direct our thoughts, that Thou wilt give wisdom and discre- 
tion and judgment that we may be rightly guided to discern the 
truth, and having discovered the truth may be given the courage 
and the understanding and the skill and the power rightly to devote 
it to those to whom it shall be the bread of eternal life. Hearken 
to us now and render to us those things which we have neither 
the knowledge nor the skill nor the courage to ask for ourselves, 
and may we walk in the light as He is in the light and have fellow- 
ship one with another through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 

Pre;side;nt James : 

Ladies and Gentlemen: To those of you who come here to 
attend the Conference and the exercises connected with the Fisk 
Celebration, I want to extend a very cordial and hearty welcome. In 
the first place, on behalf of this city of Evanston, although I have 
not been appointed officially by the citizens of Evanston to do that, 



I am sure I am expressing the sentiments of everyone of them 
when I extend to you a most hearty welcome. The calm superiority 
with which the true Evanstonian listens to the singing of the praises 
and merits of any other place of residence under the sun is some- 
thing which arouses sometimes the astonishment, sometimes the 
admiration and mirth, and sometimes the wrath of people from 
abroad. The great city to the south of us has always looked upon 
us with envious eyes. It is said that at one time over the desk in 
the editorial room of one of the leading Chicago papers was this 
legend, "Roast Evanston on all Occasions and all Evanstonians." 
The time for that sort of attitude toward Evanston has passed. The 
press of Chicago has certainly done full justice to Evanston of late 
years, and the feeling is one of the utmost cordiality between the 
two cities. You will remember that last spring, when the President 
of the United States came out to this section of the country on a 
visit, he was pleased to make his first stop in Evanston, his second 
in Chicago, and the Chicago press has not altogether forgotten 
that yet. 

I had thought of speaking about the cloudy skies and the weep- 
ing trees, but that has all passed away, and the welcome has come 
to you in the bright sunlight and bright sunshine which, I trust, will 
continue through all your stay. I extend to you a most hearty wel- 
come on the part of the University. We have here of course in 
Evanston only a part of the University, half of it is in the City. I 
bring from the members of the faculties a very cordial greeting 
to you. We are just now in the midst of the annual football cam- 
paign, and it is a great testimony to the importance of this occasion 
that the faculty and students here in Evanston have agreed, in spite 
of that great event, with practical unanimity to extend the very 
cordial greeting expressed by attendance upon your gatherings and 
listening to your discussions. 

We are today as always in a great country in the midst of a 
great crisis. I do not think that even in our industry there has 
been a greater movement than is proceeding at present in the field 
of education. And we thought here at Northwestern that we could 
do nothing more to signalize the happy event to which as an inci- 
dent this Conference is called than to ask the men and women in the 
country interested in this great question of secondary education to 
come together and discuss some of these important questions that 
are stirring not only this country but every other country. The 
question of the proper organizing of secondary education in its 



relation to elementary, on the one hand, and to higher education, on 
the other, is today a burning question in England as it is with us. 
In fact, in a certain way we think we have solved some of these 
problems more successfully than our English cousins. I notice 
in the reports of the papers which come to us from the visit of the 
Mosely Commission, which is now in the Eastern States, that the one 
question that provokes their attention is, what shall the secondary 
system be and how shall it be organized and integrated in these 
two great elements above and below it. 1 presume we shall have 
some considerable light thrown upon the question by our discus- 
sion, and certainly no greater testimony could be paid to the one in 
whose honor we are assembled today, a testimony greater than this 
building which is a monument to him in its name, than this dis- 
cussion of these questions in which he has been interested for more 
than thirty years. 

I take great pleasure this morning in introducing as the gentle- 
man who will open this series of discussions the Principal of the 
institution which stands par excellence in the minds of the people 
of this country as the typical secondary institution. The Phillips 
Andover is not only the oldest Academy in continuous session in 
the United States, but it is the one which on the whole has exercised 
the widest and deepest influence on schools of its class in directing 
and changing the currents of education. We have with us today 
the gentleman who has been characterized as "the youngest head- 
master of the oldest Academy in the United States." I take great 
pleasure in introducing Principal Stearns of Phillips Andover. 

Principai, Stearns: 

I feel altogether unfit for this position which I have been called 
upon to attempt to fill this morning. The position rightly belongs 
to someone who has had vastly more experience in the work of sec- 
ondary education than I have had, and I can only accept the honor 
shown me as a testimony to the school which I represent, and 
especially to that grand man whom I follow in that school. He, 
like the man whom you meet to honor today, gave the best years 
of his life to the work of uplifting and helping so many young lives 
in our country. 

The subject which has been assigned to me is indeed a broad 
one, and I can touch only upon a few of the features which most 
clearly present themselves to us, and which must necessarily claim 
our attention. The topic which has been assigned to me is 



THE PRESENT SITUATION IN SECONDARY 
EDUCATION. 

Some one has recently said that Secondary Education is called 
secondary because it comes first; first in point of time and first in 
importance. I know of no other excuse for this misnomer. Our 
country has been slow to recognize the real position of the secondary 
school. Psychologists have long recognized and taught that youth 
is the period when habits are formed and character developed which, 
in the vast majority of cases, remain fixed throughout life. The 
years between twelve and twenty are well designated as the forma- 
tive period of life. In these years the mind is plastic, impression- 
able, easily directed and influenced for good or for bad. Habits are 
not yet established; character is not yet set. Success or failure in 
later life must largely depend upon the training of these early years. 
This, then, is the opportunity of the secondary school. With rare 
exceptions the college or university can put only the finishing touches 
to the building, and while this superficial finish is what the world 
most clearly discerns, the completed structure can be no stronger 
than its foundations, nor its endurance more lasting than that of the 
stones upon which it rests. 

A college president has written: "I am often awed and pained 
with the thought of how little the college can do for the students 
who come flocking to its doors. At eighteen and one-half years, 
the age at which the student raps at the college portals for the first 
time, the character of that student is pretty well formed. These 
boys have not yet indeed passed their second and intellectual birth, 
but they are possessed of intellectual relations very well set and fixed. 
Little can the college do for them in comparison with what the 
school may and should do for them." 

In the lavish bestowal of wealth by men of means upon Ameri- 
can educational institutions, this fact has been largely overlooked, 
and the secondary school has been obliged to fight its way and ac- 
complish its great work at times almost alone and unaided, and 
always in the face of obstacles and discouragements which have been 
met only by the resolute courage and unflinching devotion of those 
who realized the vital importance of the work they had undertaken, 
and who believed in its ultimate success. It is, however, one of 
the most hopeful signs of the times that the importance of the 



fitting school in our American educational system is coming to be 
more clearly recognized. The remarkable growth of our public 
schools during the last fifteen years and the increasing patronage 
of the endowed academy and private school bear striking witness 
to this fact. 

While it is true that the work of secondary education has always 
been of great importance, it is equally true that of late years this 
work has assumed an added significance. This result has been 
largely due to the growing tendency to throw upon the preparatory 
school a large part of the work formerly done by the colleges. And 
there is every evidence to show that this burden is to be increased. 
Whatever may be the outcome of the present widespread discussion 
in regard to shortening the college course, a larger demand must 
inevitably be made upon the secondary school. The object sought by 
all is that the college graduate may be able to enter upon a profes- 
sional or business career at an earlier age than it is now possible for 
him to do. Yet there is no desire to curtail the amount of work which 
is to be done. President Eliot, voicing the opinion of the leading edu- 
cators of the country, makes this fact clear in his annual report for 
the year 1901-1902. Referring to the standards required for the 
degree of Bachelor of Arts, he says : "Harvard University proposes 
to uphold the standard of that degree by all appropriate legislation 
within its own walls, and by the effect of its admission examinations 
on the secondary schools." Obviously, the preparatory school is to 
be called on to enlarge the scope of its work and to increase the 
efficiency of its training. And the magnitude of this task assumes 
an added significance when we realize that the ability of the student 
to make a wise use of the increased liberty afforded him by the col- 
lege in the selection of his studies, must depend upon the mental 
training secured and the habits previously formed in his preparatory 
school. 

The new and increasing demands of the colleges and universities 
cover a wide range, both in character and amount. Freshman year 
is no longer a period of mental discipline and training. The burden 
of this work now rests upon the secondary school. The student who 
enters college is expected to have served his apprenticeship and to 
be ready for definite lines of work. On the preparatory school rests 
the responsibility of fitting him for these larger opportunities. His 
habits must be formed, his peculiar talents recognized and developed, 
his character moulded. Early in life his choice of studies must be 
directed to meet the requirements of the various courses offered by 



the higher institutions. The uniform training which only a few 
years ago appHed equally well for all will no longer hold. Year 
by year the colleges add new courses to their curricula, and to meet 
the requirements of these courses new subjects must be provided 
in the secondary schools. Subjects which formerly were regarded as 
fit only for the upper years of a collegiate course must now be given 
in the earlier years of preparatory school work. New divisions must 
be added, new teachers secured, new methods employed. The situa- 
tion is fraught with grave dangers, and the responsibilities of the 
secondary school are increasing with every added change in the 
higher work. 

It is not possible in the time allotted me to discuss in detail the 
many problems that these new conditions have brought. I can speak 
only briefly of a few of the most important. 

TENDENCY TOWARDS EARIvY SPECIALIZATION. 

The wide extension of the elective system in our higher institu- 
tions of learning has brought with it a growing tendency towards 
early specialization. The youth who enters the high school or 
academy is altogether too apt to be concerned, not with the mental 
training and discipline which the secondary school should furnish, 
but merely with those individual subjects which he believes will 
serve his chosen end. Subjects which do not appear to him to bear 
directly upon his later work will either be passed by or at best 
accepted as unfortunate necessities. The sound and thorough drill, 
the well-rounded training which would best fit him to meet the 
special demands of his later calling, whatever that calling may be, 
these are spurned as old-fashioned, or at least as of no practical 
value to him. Schoolmasters who day after day are obliged to face 
these arguments of immature and undeveloped youth can best ap- 
preciate the pathos of the situation. Have we a right, we naturally 
ask, to sanction conditions which encourage mere boys to train 
themselves for a given calling before they can possibly know what 
latent talents they may possess ? How many of us here today would, 
in our schoolboy days, have selected our present profession as the 
goal of our endeavor? I am glad to say that some at least of the 
leading colleges still make their requirements for entrance of such 
a nature that disciplinary training in the preparatory school is in a 
measure possible. But the competition for students is still responsi- 
ble for unfortunate conditions. Different entrance possibilities are 
offered, some of which are pretty sure to fit the wants of almost 



every candidate. Alluring "special courses" are set forth to tempt 
the weak and to multiply the problems of earlier training. Such 
possibilities and "special courses" may be in individual cases a real 
benefit, more often their effects are demoralizing. At best the 
problems of the secondary school are vastly increased. Conditions 
of a widely varying character must be met. The requirements of 
different colleges are to be reckoned with. Individual attention must 
be given to the peculiar wants of each student or group of students. 
Courses to meet the demands of the highest standard universities 
must often be arranged side by side with those which fit for colleges 
of lower standard. One pupil plans to enter his chosen college on 
the certificate of his school : his neighbor must undergo an exacting 
examination. The former is satisfied with a fair standard of work : 
the latter can afford to put forth only his best effort. To secure an 
even grade of work from both is the problem of the school, and this 
is far from an easy task. To meet such conditions as these calls for 
exacting care, for sound judgment, and for high scholarship. These 
the secondary school must supply, and the call for men who can 
master these perplexing problems grows more urgent every year. 

In our high schools the demands are even more exacting. Not 
only must preparatory courses be maintained, but at the same time 
courses which will in a measure fit pupils to enter at once upon 
the duties of active life. The work must be incomplete at best, but 
public sentiment demands that the attempt be made, whatever the 
results. Modern Languages, the Sciences, and Manual Training 
best suit the popular demand, and innumerable courses must be pro- 
vided to meet the situation. The splendid training and exacting 
discipline of the classics have little place in such a scheme. And 
the problem of the high school is vastly increased when we realize 
the difficulty in securing efficient teachers at the salaries the school 
can afford to give and the limited opportunity offered to the in- 
structor of bringing to bear upon his pupil the influence of his own 
personality without which the best results can never be secured. 

I have referred to the growing tendency of the colleges and uni- 
versities to shorten the period of preparation for professional and 
business life. I have called attention to the fact that the shortening 
of this period of preparation does not mean less ground to be cov- 
ered, and that hence an added demand must inevitably be made on 
the secondary school. The effects of this burden have already 
made themselves felt. The work which is now required of the 
preparatory school can scarcely be accomplished under the old 



regime. The student of average ability finds himself taxed beyond 
his capacity. He must resort to other methods, and the vast num- 
ber of so-called summer tutoring schools which have sprung up dur- 
ing the last five years are but the natural results of this demand. 
That the effects of this type of school are in the main injurious I 
think no one will deny. In peculiar cases they may be a real benefit ; 
but in itself the so-called cramming process is wholly bad. Im- 
mediate results only are aimed at — methods and mental training 
are of small moment. If the results sought are merely that the 
student may be prepared to pass examinations in given subjects the 
process is simple, and the time ordinarily given to preparatory school 
work may easily be shortened. Clever tutors are common enough, 
and the required amount of information can easily be imparted to 
the pupil. Real teachers are rare, and they are concerned with a 
far more serious work. The province of the teacher is to teach his 
pupils to think; to develop and strengthen their mental powers so 
that when the larger problems of life confront them, they will be 
able to master them. Well-rounded education is what our youth 
must have, and well-rounded education is possible only when instruc- 
tion in individual subjects is thorough and exacting, and above all 
is made to touch every phase of human interest. The so-called cram- 
ming process can never accomplish this. Tutoring not only fails 
to develop, but it more often destroys whatever natural mental 
capacity the individual may possess. Information secured in th'.s 
way can never crystalize into knowledge, and it is soon lost. There 
is no foundation here on which to build a lasting structure. In their 
desire to shorten the period of the student's preparation, our colleges 
would do well to keep this fact in mind. The secondary school cati 
hardly stand a severer strain than it is now called upon to bear if it 
is to do its proper work and fit its students aright for the larger 
opportunities of the college. 

And while the demands made upon the secondary schools are 
steadily increasing, the problem is rendered even more difficult by 
the character of the material on which the school must work. The 
decadence of a normal and healthy family life in America, and with 
it that sound and sensible home training which in the past has been 
one of the greatest sources of the strength of the Republic, presents 
a situation which has well aroused the anxiety of thoughtful men. 
It is hard to exaggerate this deplorable condition, and nowhere are 
its evils more clearly recognized than in the secondary school. In 
addition to its many other responsibilities the school must more and 



more attempt to supply that early moral training which properly be- 
longs to the home. A large amount of its energy must be devoted 
to this work, without which the best courses of instruction it can 
offer will prove of little worth. There is a deep and tremendous 
significance in the mushroom-like growth of hundreds of so-called 
"home schools" in this country during the last ten years. In their 
feeble way they are seeking to supply a necessary want. In many 
instances they are doing a noble work under the leadership of de- 
voted men and women, but often, I regret to say, they are merely 
making use of lamentable conditions to further selfish aims. In 
neither case can they undo a vital wrong. We hear much in these 
days of race suicide. Existing conditions startle us and fill us with 
misgivings for the future. But what shall we say of the training of 
our American youth upon whom the nation must soon rely for 
leadership. The materialistic spirit which dominates our land today 
and the whirl of our social life leave little opportunity for the proper 
care and training of our children. Pitiable in the extreme is the 
lot of the child of parents of wealth and influence. Business and 
professional demands for the one, and exacting social requirements 
for the other, render it impossible for the father or mother to give 
to the developing character of the child the thought and guidance 
that is every child's birthright. The nurse, the governess, the kinder- 
garten, the tutor, the select private school, each in turn is called 
upon to attempt to supply the lack, and when the child emerges 
from this ruinous process the preparatory school is asked to make 
him a man. And this in the face of ever increasing demands from 
the college. If the school fails, the school must bear the blame. Nor 
is this condition confined to the children of the rich alone. It will 
be found in an increasing degree in almost all classes of society, 
among men of intellect as well as among men of money; and one 
of the most pathetic features of the situation lies in the fact that 
men who owe their success in life to the struggles and discipline of 
their youthful days persist in denying to their children those very 
conditions and opportunities by which their own success was made 
possible. We may well protest against race suicide, but we must 
go still further if we are to preserve our American manhood and 
maintain the efficiency of our race. 

The mental and physical training of our young men and young 
women, then, is not the only task assigned to the secondary school, 
but, in a steadily increasing degree, the moral welfare must be 
guarded and the great truths of religion emphasized. In the homes, 



as I have said, this training is more and more neglected : the colleges 
and universities have neither the time nor the opportunity to supply 
the want. On the secondary school falls the responsibility. A grave 
responsibility, too, is this, for the broader knowledge imparted by 
the higher institution must prove a blessing or a curse just in so 
far as the character of the individual is sound or weak. Youth is 
the period of severest temptation. It is also the period of greatest 
strength. The spirit of youth will rise above temporary defeats 
as that of man never can. Religious impulses are strong; the long- 
ing to attain to high ideals is inherent in character that is yet in the 
making; purity and righteousness, even when the basest passions 
are conflicting for supremacy, are never more attractive. These im- 
pulses must be strengthened, and these longings satisfied. A splendid 
opportunity is this, and no school can afford to underestimate it. 
Opinions may differ as to how this opportunity may best be met; 
methods may vary widely : but the real end to be secured must never 
be lost sight of. We must not delude ourselves into thinking that 
temptation can be excluded by imaginary walls, and that monastic 
seclusion is to fit our young men and young women to accept the 
responsibilities and to face the dangers of life which must sooner 
or later come to us all. The most insidious temptations to which 
youth is subject spring from the heart, and the heart is always 
present. We must judiciously allow each individual to develop his 
own strength and to test his own resources under the most helpful 
influences we can provide. Only in this way can we hope to develop 
character fitted for the larger service of later life. This is the great 
opportunity of the secondary school, and to solve this important 
question aright calls for the highest devotion, the soundest judg- 
ment, and the deepest thought, 

PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHIvETlCS. 

It would be impossible for me to cover fully the question assigned 
me without discussing the physical side of the training which must 
be offered by our secondary schools. 

ATHIvETlCS — BENEFITS AND EVILS. 

Of late years athletics have come to occupy a most important 
and unique position in school and college life. Physical education is 
today recognized as an essential factor in the successful life and 
work of almost every institution. That the mind is capable of its 

10 



best work when reenforced by a sound and healthy body is admitted 
by all prominent educators. That a proper physical development is 
due both to the individual and the race is also a well-established 
conviction. But there are some features connected with the physical 
training furnished by American institutions which are deserving 
of our most careful thought and of our wisest judgment. I refer 
to what is commonly termed college athletics, or that form of 
physical training which finds its expression in the contests between 
organized teams representing schools and colleges. 

To avoid the possibility of any misapprehension as to my position 
on this important subject which has claimed the thought of educators 
everywhere as well as of the public at large, let me say at the out- 
set that I am a firm and an enthusiastic believer in school and col- 
lege athletics. I have participated in them with all the spirit and 
interest I could command. I have felt the keen exultation of hard- 
earned victory, and I have chafed under the sting of defeat. Phys- 
ically this training has been of inestimable value to me, while its 
mental and moral discipline I regard as among the most precious 
heritages of my school and college days. Nor am I far enough away 
from these youthful days to allow these benefits to be forgotten be- 
cause of a larger outlook which maturer years have brought. But I 
cannot forget the evils or overlook the dangers which even in 
younger years were recognized and which later years have empha- 
sized. 

The press has had much to say on this subject of late. News- 
papers and magazines have been flooded with articles bearing upon 
the question. The benefits have been pointed out, and the evils so- 
called emphasized. The arguments are known to you all, and have 
become almost commonplace. But to my mind the greatest evils 
have been largely overlooked, and the most serious dangers have 
been unrecognized. 

The first duty of the school as well as the college is to train its 
students mentally, morally, and physically for service of country, of 
mankind, and of God ; to develop habits and to shape character which 
shall be strong to meet the duties and responsibilities of life, to stand 
fast against the forces of evil, and to lead the forces of truth and 
righteousness. No institution, then, can afford to allow or sanction 
anything that does not tend to this end. 

In themselves athletics offer splendid opportunities for this train- 
ing. In this respect the moral benefits far outweigh the physical. 
But abuses which have been steadily creeping in during the last 

11 



quarter ot a century are rapidly offsetting the benefits, and are 
threatening the very life of this important feature of our modern 
school and college life. Athletic contests are coming more and more 
to be regarded as an end rather than a means. Far too much im- 
portance is attached to success, and nothing short of victory will 
satisfy the contestant or his friends. Methods come to be of small 
consequence provided only the desired results are secured, and hence 
questionable methods have become lamentably common. Players early 
are taught that skill in disregarding rules is a prime requisite of a 
successful athlete. The umpire is to be deceived so far as is possible, 
and the rules to be ignored. Sly and underhand practices, well 
known to all followers of modern games, are often commended and 
encouraged just in so far as detection does not ensue. And the 
worst feature of this lamentable situation lies in the fact that it is 
largely graduates of our colleges and universities who are engaged 
in this demoralizing business. 

In the secondary school this evil is most insidious. To the average 
schoolboy the college athlete is a veritable hero. He stands as an 
example to be followed, an ideal to be attained to. His influence 
over the untrained mind and unformed character of his youthful 
admirer is tremendous. His word is law. And this man often, I 
regret to say, passes his time in instructing his pupils in the arts 
of deceit and dishonesty. He may even go further, and in order to 
work his followers to the highest pitch of excitement and effort, 
seek to arouse their baser passions in order that they may throw 
themselves into the contest with a reckless daring that insures greater 
chances of success. There are splendid exceptions to this rule, but 
I have seen many an athletic coach devoting hours to teaching his 
young followers how they may cleverly disobey the rules of the 
game without risk of detection : and I think that I am safe in saying 
that the majority of coaches are given, in a limited measure at least, 
to this business. I have heard boys complain that they were advised 
that a little profanity at times would tend to demoralize their op- 
ponents. And from college graduates I myself have, on more than 
one occasion, heard vile and filthy abuse heaped upon players in 
their charge. 

A graduate of a leading college was recently invited to coach the 
football team of an Eastern preparatory school. During the previous 
year he had coached the baseball nine of a rival school, but it was 
not felt that this fact need stand in the way of the proposed arrange- 
ment. His answer to the invitation was that while he liked the 

12 



school and would thoroughly enjoy the work, he felt that he could 
not consistently undertake the task, since his previous relations with 
the rival school would make it impossible for him to arouse among 
his pupils that "hatred" toward their sister institution without which 
he felt that success would be impossible. 

Surely athletics which depend for their success upon dishonesty 
and hatred are in need of vigorous overhauling. For one, I shall 
never believe that success in athletics, even when measured by the 
schoolboy standard, is dependent upon such barbarous and demor- 
alizing conditions, and the duty of every man entrusted with the care 
and guidance of undeveloped characters should be to oppose with 
every means in his power the introduction and preaching of such 
debasing doctrines. If care is required in selecting as teachers men 
of character and influence, even more important is it to my mind that 
the men to whom the undeveloped youth looks with reverence and 
admiration should be men who are actuated by principles of honesty 
and uprightness. We are not true to our trust if we fail to protect 
our students against such evils as these: nor have we a right to 
wonder if boys who cannot deal squarely with their own mates should 
resort to sly practices in their relations with their teachers and in 
the larger relations of business and professional life. 

I have little patience with those who most loudly protest against 
the physical dangers of football, who busy themselves with the fram- 
ing of eligibility rules whereby scores of deserving and honest stu- 
dents are debarred from the privilege of representing their school 
or college on the diamond or gridiron, who regard summer ball play- 
ing as a heinous crime, and who would limit American athletics to 
an aristocratic or leisure class. The gravest dangers are moral, not 
physical. Certain elements of roughness should, and no doubt will, 
be eliminated ; the so-called professional element must be debarred, 
but physical injuries, even an occasional fatality, are of small moment 
as compared with conditions which undermine the moral nature of 
our youth. Physical injuries cannot injure character; they more 
often do it good. The real evil is of another sort. 

But there is still another demoralizing phase of the present ath- 
letic situation. The athlete has come to occupy altogether too im- 
portant a position in the eyes of his fellows. Under existing condi- 
tions he is led to overestimate his real worth. Unconsciously he 
comes to demand extra considerations, to feel that his school or col- 
lege is dependent upon him for success. The preparatory school is 
the greatest sufferer in this respect. In their eagerness to attain 

13 



success, the colleges early canvass the secondary schools for material. 
Promising material is sought out and followed carefully. Students 
from the various colleges vie with one another in offering to young 
and susceptible boys all sorts of attractive inducements to lead them 
to choose given colleges. Arguments are advanced to show the use- 
lessness of completing the regular preparatory courses when entrance 
to college can be earlier secured. So persistent and widespread has 
this practice become that it is extremely difficult for any school of 
good standing to hold boys of athletic ability to the full completion 
of its course. Nor is this the only bad feature of the situation ; but in 
addition to forming an altogether wrong opinion of his own worth 
and place, the athlete is led to forget the serious side of his training 
and the real responsibilities of his life. Character is undermined 
and a false egoism takes its place. 

The senseless and disgraceful wrangles which are constantly tak- 
ing place between the representatives of our institutions of learn- 
ing over the question of their athletic relations are a disgrace to 
the institutions themselves and a menace to their influence. If the 
schools and colleges which represent our highest culture and soundest 
scholarship cannot be trusted to do the right and the manly thing in 
their relations with each other, why should we stand aghast at the 
forces of corruption and dishonesty which are so prevalent in our 
social and national life. 

And this brings me to the last topic I wish to touch upon in con- 
nection with this subject: The influence and importance of strong 
personalities. Youth is pre-eminently the period of hero-worship. 
The scholar, the athlete, the boy or girl in whom social ambitions 
are strong, early selects an ideal by the standards of which actions 
are governed and habits formed. In most cases this ideal is high. 
The youthful mind is quick to respond to the influence of a strong 
personality. It is equally quick to detect sham. The teacher who 
commands the respect and love of pupils exerts an influence which 
can hardly be measured. Scholarship and even devotion are of 
little value if sympathy between pupil and instructor is lacking. 
A pupil will work for the teacher whom he admires ; for one whom 
he dislikes he can scarcely be driven to exert himself. Uncon- 
sciously he strives to please and seeks to imitate those for whom 
his admiration has been kindled. The responsibility of the instructor 
cannot be limited to the class room. In a large sense the teacher 
must supply the place of parent, of brother or sister, and of friend. 
Disciplinary measures need scarcely be considered by the teacher 

14 



who can throw himself with zeal into every department of the 
pupil's life, and who is big enough to recognize in the pastimes and 
recreation of schoolday life opportunities for larger influence and for 
greater service. No school, therefore, can afford to have on its staff 
any but the strongest personalities. Economy may well be practiced 
in every other department before it is resorted to here. The oppor- 
tunity for service furnished by the preparatory school should appeal 
to every well-rounded man or woman who desires to make his or 
her life count, and a permanent and attractive career should be 
offered by the fitting school to those who have shown their sympathy 
with and their fitness for this great work. 

In this hurried and incomplete summary of the present situation 
in secondary education, I have perhaps laid undue emphasis upon 
the problems that confront us and the handicaps under which we 
must work. But I would not have you think me a pessimist. I am 
far from that. Pessimism has no place in our modern educational 
system. But we would be untrue to our trust if we failed to recognize 
the difficulties under which we must contend and towards the solu- 
tion of which our best efforts must be bent. The problems are many 
and complex, the task severe, but just so the opportunities are tre- 
mendous. The remarkable growth of our secondary schools is the 
result of no mere chance, but is governed by supreme and universal 
law. Nature unaided seeks to fill every gap within her realm, and 
if we grow alarmed at modern tendencies in our American life, at 
weaknesses in our social system, let us accept the remedy which 
Nature has provided and consecrate ourselves to the duty and 
splendid privilege which she offers us in the work of the secondary 
school. 

President James : 

Before introducing the chairman of the morning, I should like 
to call your attention to the program, a copy of which has been 
placed in the hands of every one. You will find in the list of dele- 
gates printed the names of those who signified their intention of 
being here at some time during the meeting of the Conference. En- 
tertainment has been provided for each person who registers, and 
the number on the button corresponds to the number opposite the 
name on the list of delegates. This is to facilitate your making your- 
selves into a special committee of introduction. We desire every 
member of the Conference to consider it a part of his special duty 
to get acquainted with every other member of the Conference. Some 
further announcements will be made later in regard to the details of 

IS 



the program. I am sorry to say that President Fuller of Drury Col- 
lege was called away suddenly by the illness of his daughter in the 
East and will not be able to be with us this morning. We have 
asked Dr. Nathaniel Butler of the University of Chicago to preside 
at this morning's session. 

Dr. Butler: 

Mr. President, Fellow Teachers — and hence Fellow Students : I 
am very grateful for the courtesy extended to me and to the institu- 
tion which I represent, by my being invited to preside at this open- 
ing session. At this time it would certainly be not permitted me 
to do more than to discharge the function for which I am appointed. 
I may, however, be allowed, I think, to assure President James 
on behalf of those of us who are visitors today that we have abso- 
lutely no objection to being congratulated upon the place where 
this Conference is held. We have no wish to decry the merits of 
Evanston from any point of view. Its position is assured and be- 
yond criticism. We understand in Chicago that it is not only easily 
first of Chicago's suburbs, but easily first among all the suburban 
towns of the country. I say this with perfect sincerity, believing 
that it comes approximately near to what President James has 
claimed for Evanston. I heard once of a man from Boston who 
was walking down Broadway when a stranger stepped up and said, 
"Excuse me, sir, I think you come from Boston." "As often as I 
can, sir," was the reply. Now the reverse is true of Chicago people 
in Evanston, we come out here as often as we can. We congratulate 
ourselves as visitors on the absolutely perfect organization and pre- 
paration made for our reception. We found no necessity of standing 
around and wondering what to do next. The moment we arrived 
we were classified and labeled and pigeonholed — in other words we 
were received and welcomed and placed. I have never seen things 
done better. I am going to steal some of these ideas and take them 
home. 

With all due respect to the President of the University, I want to 
congratulate us all upon the fact that the central figure of this Con- 
ference is that man before us who has for the past thirty or forty 
years devoted himself to education with the spirit of a real lover 
of his work. Most of us at least began to go into this work to 
make a living; Dr. Fisk went in to make others know how to live. 
He impresses one as do Thomas Arnold and President Hopkins and 
Thomas Fairchild, whose work in education was prompted by noth- 



16 



ing short of the highest and most sacred motives. So I feel that 
element in this meeting is the most important of all. 

I do not think it is too much to say that if we can once define 
secondary education, if we can once determine what its materials, 
aims and methods should be we have practically solved all problems 
of education. The questions of elementary and university educa- 
tion will be easily solved when we get this question thoroughly 
settled. This is true not only in this country, but in England, France 
and Germany they are feeling the same. 

As has already been told you, President Fuller is not present 
and his paper will be deferred for the present. The special topic 
to which our attention is now invited is "What is the place and 
function of the endowed Academy or of the Private High School 
for boys or girls in our present system of education?" That dis- 
cussion will be opened by Mr. Arthur Oilman, Director of the 
Oilman School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Mr. Oilman : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Oentlemen: My subject is The 
Function of the Private School for Oirls. It is pleasant for me 
to reflect that I am not a stranger in Illinois. The subject on 
which I am asked to speak is one with which I have had relations 
all my life. Monticello Seminary, foremost among schools for 
girls, was established by the beneficence of Benjamin Oodfrey, a 
business partner of my father, in the year of my birth, and for many 
years my father was one of the three original trustees of the school. 
Among my earliest recollections, none is more vivid than those 
connected with this Seminary, through the corridors of which my 
infant feet often pattered, for Miss Philena Fobes and Theron 
Baldwin, the first to direct instruction there were friends of my 
parents. To me the "Yale Band" or the "Illinois Band" and the 
names of Benjamin Oodfrey, Ninian Edwards, Elisha Jenney, Julian 
Sturtevant, Thomas Lippincott, Cyrus Edwards, Edward Beecher, 
Newton Bateman, Timothy Turner, Lyman Trumbull, Abraham 
Lincoln, Oeorge T. M. Davis and E. W. Blatchford, connecting 
the past and the present, are as familiar from long association as 
they can be to you. I can adopt the words of Miss Lucy Larcom, 
read at the semi-centennial of Monticello Seminary, 



17 



"Two worlds I live in — East and West, 
I cannot tell which world is best ; 
The friends that people both are dear; 

The same glad sun 
Shines into each ; far blends with near, 
And then is now — and there is here — 

And both are one." 

"Educators" as they are called, are making a bustle in the world. 
In Boston, last summer, we welcomed some thirty odd thousand 
of them, and I know what it means to summon teachers from every 
region of the American Republic and have them meet in one place. 
A unifying principle has been dropped into the land. Men and 
women from the North and South, from the East and the West 
have met and have looked into each other's eyes. They have shaken 
hands, and have recognized that they are interested in a common 
cause — a cause that lies near the foundations of things. The sub- 
ject of our schools and the education they afford — of public schools 
and private schools, of separate education and of co-education, of 
religious instruction and of the Bible in schools — these are thought 
of perennial interest by all men of affairs, by all editors, by all 
parents — by every private citizen, be he parent or not. Every 
periodical that one takes up proves this. The doings of educational 
conventions and of school boarcis are fully reported, as they should 
be. Everywhere vast buildings are going up for schools, public 
and private. On all hands children by droves are found entering 
these buildings. Visitors from over seas are extravagant in their 
commendation of our school system, and we ourselves do not con- 
fine our praises to the Fourth of July. If we examine closely, how- 
ever, we find that the success that we remark is due more to the 
spirit of the American people, the American Zeitgeist, than to the 
school system as such. There are mechanical systems of education 
in other lands but they produce other results. Millions are poured 
out from the treasuries of villages and towns for schools — public 
schools, and yet one-tenth of all the children under instruction do 
not enter them. Instead, we find that parents expend other vast 
sums for the purpose of sending their sons and daughters elsewhere. 
Strange phenomenon ! While the schools sustained by the State are 
thus supported with lavishness, and while with general acclaim 
it is asserted that they are accomplishing a result worthy of high 
praise, why should there be private schools? 

18 



Highly as it is praised, the system of American public school 
education does not escape adverse criticism, and this criticism usually 
comes from those who know it best — from the teachers and officers 
who are carrying it on. We read these comments in educational 
journals, journals devoted to the interests of public instruction ; for 
there are, so far as I know, no journals devoted to the interests of 
private schools. These critics tell us that the teachers, being in- 
competent, waste much of the time, and that the pupils, being taught 
by unfortunate methods, are "licensed by their teachers to sleep," 
and thus waste as much also. They assure us that the managers 
of the schools are often men seeking political preferment, and that 
they judge school matters from the position natural to such, asking 
themselves, "How will this affect me and my friends?" rather than 
"How will it affect the children ?" Teachers are appointed by "pulls," 
they tell us, and are promoted atid held in place by "influence" 
rather than by worth. As a member of a school committee, I once 
found in a public school a teacher put in position by a "pull," who 
avowed her faith in the text-book to such an extent that she declared 
it superfluous that she should know anything. I have no doubt 
she called school work "tasks," after the enlightened example of our 
forefathers. She would have starved had she tried her fortunes in 
a private school. 

While I write there comes to me a paper with a long article 
headed in large type, "A Corrupt School System; Extortion and 
Venality in Philadelphia; positions of teachers in many cases due to 
political pull ; large boards of directors, whose main desire is patron- 
age; assessmoiits laid upon teachers," showing a shocking condition 
of affairs in the "City of Brotherly Love." It goes on to say that 
"Miss Margaret Haley of Chicago, has been addressing the teachers, 
and that better days are perhaps coming." Much of this is true, 
but it is not at all necessary to base the claims of the private school 
upon the faults of the municipal institutions. Every town is able 
to point to many a consecrated teacher who has worn himself or 
herself out in the illiberally paid service of the community. They are 
the salt of the educational earth. Education is costly, but the money 
ought to be invested in teachers — not in buildings. 

Passing by, therefore, all such criticism, and recognizing the 
truth that the real teacher in either class of schools is dominated by 
the same lofty aim, let us approach the consideration of our subject 
in a practical way. The child is the object for which the school 
stands. His is the interest, and his alone, for which the public funds 

19 



are appropriated, and for which parents invest their milHons in 
private schools. Here is a mother with a young daughter. She 
thinks herself the natural instructor of the child. She therefore 
begins to act upon this principle. The girl must be taught to talk. 
That is plain, and perhaps easy, she thinks. It must be taught to 
read. That is not so easy. The next step is to give it an idea of the 
relations of numbers. The young mother finds that her work grows 
in difficulty. She looks to books, and learns that there are ways 
of teaching the daughter to talk of which she had never even heard. 
In teaching reading there are many new methods, and in arithmetic 
more. The young and ambitious mother does not like to face the 
conclusion that she is not so capable for the task that she so lightly 
assumed, as she thought. However, on she plods. She finds one 
day that the daughter has a disposition that she does not compre- 
hend, that her sympathies are so warm towards her that she is 
nervously excited as the daughter blunders or is obstinate. Finally, 
it "is borne in upon her," as she puts it, that perhaps someone who 
was educated less than a quarter of a century before — somebody 
who has acquaintance with the advance in pedagogy, may know 
other methods, and perhaps might meet the disposition of the child 
in a calmer manner, not having her intense personal feeling for 
her. Experience would help, so she thinks, and one who has had 
experience with other children, with scores, perhaps with hundreds 
of others, might understand the child even better than she does 
herself. As she sits down to look over the range of school work, 
she realizes that the world of teachers has not stood still for the 
previous quarter-century, and she feels that, in this respect, she 
herself has. It costs her a pang to confess that another may lead 
the mind of her child forward better than she can. She finds that 
her experience is not strange. The mother of Ruskin thought that 
she could educate her son, but she was obliged to give over the 
work. 

If the young mother whom we are following lives in a rural 
community where there is a simple one-room country school, and 
it is led by an intelligent, inspiring teacher, her course is plain. She 
can send her child thither. This teacher, instructed in fresh ways 
of teaching, with a mind well trained and stored, can direct the 
first steps of the child successfully, give it a love for the exercise 
of its little brain, and start it on the educational way hopefully. 
Daniel Webster was trained in such a school. But soon another 
difficulty arises. One teacher, the mother has already discovered in 

20 



her own experience, cannot be expected to be equally well able to 
instruct in a variety of studies, and she finds that the variety is 
vast, the range wider than she had supposed before the problem 
was brought home to her. The little rural school does not offer 
specialists, and specialists the child grows to need. This is not the 
end of the difficulty either. The community itself is small, the 
child needs a wider view and larger companionship than she can 
find in the place of her birth. She must learn, if she is to grow up 
anything but narrow-minded, that there are other ways of living, 
other ways of looking at things, other kinds of people from those 
she has known, and that perchance these other people and their 
habits are as well worthy of commendation as those she has been 
familiar with. The mother begins to think that perhaps a board- 
ing school would accomplish for her much that she desires for her 
daughter, if not all that she needs. She finds that there are no 
"public" boarding schools, and this leads her to believe that private 
boarding schools at least have a place in the world. 

Let us suppose, on the other hand, that this mother lives in the 
city, where she has no difficulty in regard to the opportunities for 
school work, for there are public schools enough. She investigates 
them. She finds that there are many pupils. Every room is crowded. 
Many children in one room under one teacher, with hundreds, if 
not thousands, in a single building. Everything runs like a well 
oiled machine. There is a variety of studies, but she feels that 
the personal touch must be lacking. What teacher can know the 
traits of so many children? How will it be possible for each pupil 
to have proper attention? Knowledge can certainly be crammed 
into little brains — a phonograph can do that; but is it possible to 
train the girls? What of the exceptional pupil — the exceptionally 
bright, the exceptionally dull? Will it not be necessary to make 
the dull pupil set the pace for the class? She has read the book of 
Thring, that inspiring headmaster of Uppingham, in her effort to 
get light, and she recalls his dictum, "Everyone can supply examples 
where there is such knowledge but no education," and she agrees 
with him that "when this is the case knowledge is not power, and 
the common axiom seems to be a fallacy." She has read her Bible, 
and she has looked at the early versions, at the Vulgate even, and 
she reads the Proverb, "Train up a child according to his bent, and 
when he is old, he will not depart from it." She has read that 
stimulating English book, "The Curse of Education," by Harold 
Gorst, and she is told there that the English schools are "nothing 

21 



more than factories for turning out a uniformly-patterned article." 
If she thinks that Mr. Gorst is a prejudiced, a one-sided observer, 
she turns to someone else. There is Matthew Arnold; but he is 
no more cheering, for he tells her that children can be put through 
examinations in reading, writing and ciphering without really know- 
ing anything about these matters. 

The mother visits the schools and finds hundreds of pupils in 
single buildings. She reads of a new school house in New York 
that holds five thousand children. She looks at its plans, beautiful 
in its architecture; but as she thinks of the throngs to pour in at 
its doors, she cannot help asking herself whether the mother who 
drops a daughter into it in the morning, is quite certain to draw 
the same one at night. In such schools she knows that twenty, 
thirty, fifty boys and girls are "classified" in the same room; but 
she knows that no two children are alike, and that no class system 
will adapt itself to the needs of all the members of its classes. 
The uniform curriculum, and the plan of putting solid masses of 
children through prescribed and inflexible courses of study seems 
unintelligent and leaves no place for a proper recognition of the 
fundamental diversity in mental, moral and physical endowment, 
recognized in the home, as in every other relation of life. The 
effort to teach wholesale obliterates the distinctive marks of indi- 
viduality — is mechanical and not intelligent. It ignores the dis- 
tinction between filling the mind and developing the powers. If 
education is developing power, filling the mind is not educating. 
The object of the teacher is to open the mind. The pupil will do the 
rest, when once he is awakened. Facts will take care of themselves. 

Edward Thring says that life is the highest known power. There- 
fore, for him education is "the transmission of life through the living 
to the living." Facts are dead, and no piling up of them can develop 
life. Nothing that can be taken apart piece by piece is living. Life 
is growth. Taking a thing apart piece by, piece does not even dis- 
cover life. 

It seems to the teacher of the private school that young people 
cannot be cultivated in masses, that there must be small numbers 
close to the teacher. Large classes must be lectured to, but lectur- 
ing is not teaching. The mature mind may gain by listening to 
lectures, but pouring knowledge over pupils is like pumping on 
them; it does not arouse interest nor bring out latent powers. It 
does not lead to thought. 

Who was it that said, "I thank God every day that I never was 

22 



a public school pupil, to be moulded into a little unthinking machine, 
utterly unable to do anything for myself"? Some editor of an 
educational journal, printing these words, adds, "A little unthinking 
machine would describe the child who had very glibly narrated the 
story of the cotton gin and its operation, and when suddenly asked 
what a cotton gin was, replied, 'A law passed by Congress for con- 
verting cotton into gin.' " 

Let us return to our anxious mother. She is the wife of a 
successful man of business. He has always had a manager, a man 
upon whom responsibility has been placed by him. He says that 
if he had had two managers, or if his affairs had been directed 
by a committee, his business might have been successful, but he 
has his doubts. A French proverb that I have just seen quoted in 
a Chicago paper is appropriate in this connection. It says that a 
ship with two captains goes to the bottom. I incline to think that 
the Frenchman would expect that a ship directed by a committee 
might get to the bottom more speedily. My morning paper tells 
me that in my own town, which is considered an intelligent place, 
2,500 children for weeks have been deprived of a text-book in 
geography, because six of the principals vote for one kind and six 
for another, and the committee seems unwilling to take either side — 
or, perhaps, the members being not trained as school experts, do 
not feel capable of deciding the question. The mother falls into her 
husband's way of thinking about a school for her daughter. Shall 
it be one directed by a committee and a superintendent, with masters 
of different grades under them ? Shall it not rather be one directed 
by a single mind, a mind belonging to a man or a woman not 
bound by the chains of educational tradition, or by the necessities 
of an educational machine? By a person not subject to removal 
by political power, not appointed by such a committee as we have 
read of, but one trained in the knowledge of child nature and of 
mental action ? She finds food for reflection in these questions. The 
mother sees another difficulty. She looks over the public schools 
of the East and finds that the foreign languages are not taught the 
children at the age when it seems natural for them to be studied, 
but are relegated to the high school, only reached at the age of 
twelve or fourteen. She thinks that there are other problems con- 
nected with the true order of studies which are not settled by 
answering the question "What is best for the child?" but by that 
other one, "What amount of money will the voters appropriate ?" 

Again, our mother is not a clod, but a person with a body and 

23 



a mind, and, besides a mind and body, a soul. She holds religious 
views. She fears to trust the tender plant to influences antagonistic 
to her particular church. She knows that it is only in the private 
school that she can expect to obtain religious instruction. Live 
religion must of necessity be presented in a denominational shape, 
it must take the form of authority, and address the religious sense, 
not the intellect alone. This being so, and the Commissioner of 
Education, Dr. Harris, is an authority for saying that it is, religious 
instruction must of necessity be kept out of schools supported by 
the public funds. The mother well knows that many of the in- 
structors in the public schools are persons of high religious con- 
victions, but that nevertheless they cannot give direct religious teach- 
ing, and though she does not wish her child to receive Sunday 
School instruction in her day school, she does long for some of the 
spirit of her own religious faith in the teacher of her daughter. She 
knows that day schools of the kind she wishes exist, and that there 
are many boarding schools which do this sort of work, in addition 
to the training of the mind, better than she can do it. 

You recall the weighty words of Huxley: "I have always been 
strongly in favor of secular education, in the sense of education 
without theology; but I must confess I have been no less seriously 
perplexed to know by what practical measures the religious feeling, 
which is the essential basis of conduct, was to be kept up in the 
present chaotic state of opinion on these matters, without the use 
of the Bible. By the study of what other book could children be 
so much humanized?" It seems that the question of the moment 
is settled by the definition that one gives of school, of education 
and of teacher. If a school is a place of leisure, not of haste; if 
by education we mean training, development of power, the establish- 
ment of character; if by the teacher we mean "a combination of 
heart, head, artistic training and favoring circumstances," an artificer 
in mind, one who deals in life, not in lessons, one who has liberty 
and leisure, then it must be confessed that there are but few teachers 
anywhere, and little education." I think that we are brought to 
the conclusion that the private school is the more likely place for 
the realization of our ideals. 

There have been great teachers. Socrates was one; but we are 
told that in the modern phrase he taught nothing, and if he had been 
called to stand up with a graduate of a modern normal school he 
would have seemed a deplorable failure. Agassiz was a great teacher ; 
but I fear that if he were placed in that great school in New York, 

24 



he would not have followed the methods of the school room. The 
methods of the crowded, graded, classified schools were not those 
of these great teachers. They developed power in the pupil. It was 
once a patent of nobility to have been taught by Agassiz. 

There are a few words to be said in this relation to parents. The 
artisan, the maker of a carpet or a horseshoe, for example, can 
show you his product in every stage. He can tell you his method 
in every detail. The gardener, who deals with physical growth, 
can dig up his seeds and show you how each one has grown ; but 
he kills it in the process. The scientist can stick pins through his 
specimens and fasten them to corks, so that you can examine them. 
The mechanical teacher can show you just how many pages and 
chapters have been "gone over" by your child, just how many facts 
have been crammed into its little brain, by means of examinations. 
The real teacher, who has been actually opening the pupil's mind 
and giving it training, cannot show you by any such process how 
far your child has advanced in the development of power — she 
can't do it, even if she kills it! The work of the true teacher is 
slow; it is often hidden, but it shows itself in time, in the ability 
of the pupil to attack problems and to solve them, and in a child-like 
gladness in the use of its powers. In making a show, the mechanical 
teacher will beat the real teacher every time. Ask Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, or Turner, or John Sargent how he works, what is his method, 
and I doubt if he can tell you. Perhaps, like one great artist, he 
will tell you that he mixes his colors "with brains," or will go 
farther and give you, as Reynolds did, an exposition of his method, 
which you will find not true, for it seems that the great artist thought 
that he followed a certain line when in reality his paintings show 
that he was mistaken. The real artisan in mind has, it is true, great 
principles, but he is powerless to tell another his method so that 
another can do what he has done. 

Have we not found four reasons why private schools for girls 
exist ? 

1. The public school deals with masses, and children cannot be 
cultivated in mass. 

2. The school under individual management, conducted not for 
mere experiment, and suited to the capacities and dispositions of the 
pupils, is not the public school. 

3. There are no public boarding schools. 

4. The public school is debarred from religious instruction. 
Symptoms of educational uneasiness are welcome. When there 

25 



is dissatisfaction with the present, a seeking after perfection follows, 
and it is to be hoped that perfection will always be ahead. You 
remember the old story of the minister who was congratulated 
because his flock were seeking perfection. "Yes," he said, "I'm 
happy when they are seeking perfection; but when they reach it, 
you can't live with them!" 

I give you the result of my thought and experience. Man 
cannot make a seed grow in his garden. Pounding it into the 
ground will not do it. The soil must be prepared, the sunlight 
must be allowed to shine upon it, the growth comes from a higher 
source. Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, but it is God 
that giveth the increase, the growth, the power, the life. 

The; Chairman : 

May I suggest at this point that after the next two papers 
opportunity will be given for brief discussion. Will those of you 
who foresee that you will take part in this discussion be kind 
enough to send your names to the platform so as to enable us to 
identify you and introduce you properly. 

A glance at the program for this Conference impresses us with 
this fact, that President James and his assistants have been signally 
successful in securing the attendance and support of men and women 
whose opinions upon educational matters are of absolutely first-rate 
importance to us, and this makes us look forward to these discus- 
sions and listen to them with the greatest interest. 

I now have the pleasure of presenting to this audience one who 
certainly needs no introduction at Northwestern and one who also 
needs no introduction in any educational assembly, for Mrs. Sewall 
has always been heard with great pleasure and interest wherever 
she has spoken. I have the honor to present Mrs. May Wright 
Sewall, Principal of the Girls' Classical School of Indianapolis. 

Mrs. Sewai.Iv: 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I shall pay my respects 
by indulging in a moment's reminiscence with the admirers of 
Evanston. In some respects the world changes and opinions so 
change also that we are not sure that we shall find ourselves occupy- 
ing the same platform with those we have known when we meet 
after the separation of a few years. In all that has been said in 
praise of Evanston, there is a note so familiar that I feel like relat- 
ing the first illustration of this local attitude that came to my knowl- 
edge when, as a young woman, I was a student here. One very dear 

26 



to everyone in Evanston at that time, Dr. Raymond, was very ill, 
and for weeks, we at the Woman's College who loved Dr. Raymond 
because he loved us, who respected him because he respected us 
and recognized us — because he was a man who did not scorn the 
minds of girls — ^had been anxiously waiting for news. One day 
we were told that his friends thought that the crisis had passed. A 
dear friend obtained permission from the physician to visit Dr. 
Raymond when it was thought that the crisis had passed and that 
the tide had turned toward life. As this friend bent over Dr. 
Raymond he said, "My dear brother, you have been so very near 
to heaven that those of us who have been praying for you think 
that although you seem to have turned back toward earth, you must 
have gotten some glimpses that we should like to share. Can you tell 
us how it seemed when the door into heaven was really ajar for 
you?" Dr. Raymond, who, it was reported, had been able to say 
nothing thus far, was moved to speak, and he assured his solicitous 
friend that there really "wasn't much difference," that indeed Evans- 
ton was so nearly like heaven that he had difficulty at first to know 
that he had got there. President James, I can say much in praise 
of your town, the home of my College. I speak of it to show the 
freedom of mind in which one must come to Evanston, for it would 
really take a very bold person, I think, to venture into this place 
with any strong feeling of antagonism toward Evanston. 

I wish to disclaim the charge that the teachers who represent 
private institutions are antagonistic toward the public school. To 
my mind, there is no antagonism toward the public school, either 
in the one institution which it is my pride to represent, or in the 
class of institutions of which that is an example ; and if it were my 
duty to speak today of the public school, I certainly should find 
something to say concerning the function of that class of school 
in a Republic. But, whether in a Republic or in a Monarchy, I 
believe the private school has a place and a function that the public 
school under no form of government can ever replace. Dr. Oilman 
has discussed some aspects of the private school so fully that it 
seems like a weak repetition to mention them again, yet I feel that 
to justify an institution's existence one must show that it is doing 
something that cannot be done equally well by another institution, 
particularly if that other institution is more accessible, cheaper, and 
more available. If the public school could do just as well what 
the private school can do, we might, indeed, challenge the private 
school's existence. The private school is sometimes said to exist for 

27 



the sake of the weak, the maimed, the halt and the feeble. To my 
mind, in so far as it exists for the feeble, it would have no reason 
to blush for the service it was rendering to the community, if it could 
take the feeble in mind and do for them what the public school, 
which does everything with reference to the average, could not do. 
So I think, that granting my claim, which is that the private school 
unites all the conditions which enable it to know each individual 
that comes under its roof as an individual, it can strengthen the 
feeble and give the timid courage; take time to find the germs of 
capacities in them, and help them by and by to keep pace with the 
average. It is not so much for their own sake or for the community's 
sake that I deplore the condition of the feeble in the institution 
which works only for the average, as I deplore for the community's 
sake and for their own, the effect of the public school upon those 
who are stronger in endowment than the average. To hold the 
strong, the capable, the talented, the gifted, always to the pace of 
the average, is a crime not only against that individual but against 
the community, which certainly is not too rich in wisdom. And so, 
for both those who in endowment are below, and those who in 
endowment are above the average, I think you will grant the argu- 
ment for the existence of the private school. After all, I realize 
that if an institution has nothing to offer to the majority, has no 
place for the average, and can do nothing for the average that 
another institution cannot do equally well, it can hardly expect to 
have the respect of the majority, and to have tribute paid to it by 
the average; so my next claim for the private school is founded on 
this proposition: — Let the average (and representatives of the aver- 
age, of course, are always largely in excess of those who are much 
below or much above it) — let the average be subjected to the pro- 
cesses and be surrounded by the conditions of the best private school, 
and a very large percentage of them will be lifted from the average 
by those conditions and those methods, and brought to swell the 
number of those who are accounted above the average. 

To my mind one of the strongest claims of the private school 
upon the respect of the community, and one of the arguments upon 
which it can base its assertion that it is needed by the public school 
system and needed in the educational system of the Republic, is, 
because our system of public education is maintained by a govern- 
ment that not only recognizes no union of church and state, but as 
a government recognizes no church, and as a government recog- 
nizes no society. There are three parts of a child's nature that 

28 



education should touch from the child's earliest life, or certainly 
from the secondary period of education, which are untouched by 
the public school in theory and largely in practice. One recognizes, 
of course, that the work of the fine teacher is always far beyond the 
recognized demand of the public school. No doubt it is true that 
the public school system has ceased to regard the child merely as 
a disembodied mental faculty. As one studies the history of our 
education, the curricula of normal schools and the methods of those 
who have trained teachers for their work; and, as he studies the 
curricula of the schools themselves, one sees that until within a 
relatively recent period the school was really adapted — taking its 
own publications and announcement of what it professed and claimed 
to do and wished to do — it was really adapted merely to the educa- 
tion of a disembodied mental faculty. If the mothers could have 
kept the bodies at home and sent the minds alone to school, they 
would have found some provision made by the school for teaching 
the mind, but they found no provision whatever for the body. The 
private school first made provision for the body, as later I shall 
hope to show that the private school has a claim for its existence 
and for its continuance and enlargement, because it is the place 
for initiative; because it is the proper ground for experimentation. 
But, not only did the private school first recognize the body of the 
child, it went further! We know that in one particular (however 
boastful we may feel, whether we live in Evanston, Indianapolis, or 
Boston) that in one particular we cannot defend our present gen- 
eration against the charge that our critics — our foreign critics some- 
times in the sharpest voice — make of the decadence of our society 
in regard to its manners. I think it not unworthy even on a serious 
occasion like this, to set forth the advantages of a kind of school that 
permits its teachers to regard the manners of its pupils. We know 
that our people are very sensitive on this subject. We know they 
not only say that they do not pay taxes for a teacher to give atten- 
tion to such matters, but that they do not wish intimations of what 
may be demanded of their children as to social conduct. I believe 
that so large a minority of our people are tainted with a misinter- 
pretation of democracy that, even were they willing to pay the taxes, 
they would resent any particular instruction in manners. The pri- 
vate school not only may regard the child's manners, but it must do 
so. Of course, when I speak in praise of this institution, I speak 
of it at its best, as we should speak of institutions only at their 



29 



best, when we are trying to give our arguments for their existence 
and their continuance. 

What has been said in regard to the reHgious and moral educa- 
tion of the child, I would if possible emphasize, though it is difficult 
to emphasize what has already been stated so clearly and with such 
emphasis. But our system of education not only provides no means 
of religious instruction, but really provides against it, in so far as 
bringing the religious influence of the teacher to bear upon the 
child is concerned. This seems to me a very serious defect in our 
public school system, and I believe it is one of the defects which 
makes a place for the private school. 

However, I know that we may look forward to the growth in 
wealth and also the corresponding growth in intelligence on the 
part of our people, until there shall come a time when the people 
will vote a taxation for the support of the public schools which will 
permit as relatively large a teaching force in comparison with the 
student force in the public secondary schools as we have now in the 
best private schools. I shall quote from my own city as being the 
one that I know best, to illustrate the disparity that still exists. 
If we divide the number of pupils in the Classical School, which 
I represent, by the number of teachers in it, we should find that 
each teacher has eight and one-half pupils under her care, while in 
the same city, if we should divide the total number of pupils in 
either of our high schools by the number of the faculty, we should 
find that each teacher has something over forty under his or her 
care. We know, of course, that the mathematical relation is not 
the only thing to consider. To say that the influence of the teacher 
over the child is in proportion to the mathematical relation of teach- 
ers to pupils, would not be fair to either institution, but it is indica- 
tive of much; and the point I wish to make is that, granting that 
our people should tax themselves to the point where the teaching 
force could be increased until, as related to the student force, it was 
equal to that of the private school at the present time, that there 
still would be room for the private school. Even under the rela- 
tively changed conditions which I have assumed that the future 
will see realized in our public schools, there must still be a uniformity 
in that institution which is under government administration that 
will not be and cannot be in that which is under individual adminis- 
tration. It is a charge brought against our society, and one that 
I have never seen satisfactorily answered, even by the most eloquent 
and philosophical patriot, that at its best, our society as a whole is 

30 



characterized by monotony. It is impossible that it should be other- 
wise where we have millions of pupils studying the same text-books 
by the same methods ; going over the same number of pages, chap- 
ters, or whatever it may be, within the same period of time ; writing 
themes upon the same subjects or outlines which coincide from 
ocean to ocean. Nothing but monotony can be expected in the 
mental attitude. There is no provision for anything else. If there 
be uniformity in the mental equipment, then, of course, in the social 
life it will be carried forward by those who have been educated 
under this system until uniformity results in monotony. It would 
seem to me that of all forms of government a democracy is that 
which needs most to leave some room in its system of education for 
private initiative. All initiative is individual. We have been given 
a very happy illustration this morning of the difficulty that an ape 
would have in managing a ship, and so far as I know, no initiative 
of any kind has been made by an ape. The initiative must be in 
the heart, the mind, the soul of the individual, and in a democratic 
community where there exists this tendency to maintain the average 
at its average, and to reduce the average to uniformity, the move- 
ment is inevitably toward monotony. Hence, all the more is there 
need that there should be some place left in the educational system 
for private initiative. As a matter of fact, in so far as our public 
schools have been improved — and no one can be more glad of 
their improvement than one interested in a private school — (I shall 
always emphasize the relation of friendliness that should exist and 
must it seems to me exist where the administrators of public and 
private schools are rational) the improvements made have been 
borrowed from the private school in which all educational initia- 
tive has been begun. The recognition of the body which resulted 
in devising systems of physical development and in providing gym- 
nasiums and directors of physical culture, came in the private school 
long before it affected the public schools. Notwithstanding that 
much is said of manual instruction, this initiative was made in 
the private school. The initiative must be made there. So, I claim 
for the private school that it is a field for experimentation where 
the individual may experiment without let or hindrance; where 
he may choose his own text-book, for example, and not be con- 
fined to books prescribed by statutes — statutes which it cannot be 
denied are ordinarily passed in the interest of the publisher, more 
rarely in that of the editor, occasionally in that of school officials, 
but certainly almost never in the interest of the child. Even that 

31 



is a degree of freedom that changes the attitude and the work. I 
should like to make much of this, but I am sure that some who will 
follow in discussion will make more of it. I feel that our interpre- 
tation of democracy is a very wrong one, and that the attitude of 
many citizens of wealth and intelligence in some parts of the country, 
as seen in their willingness to send their children to the public 
school, is a wrong idea of democracy. Democracy has two mean- 
ings : The one, "I am just as good as any one" is a reading that is 
fatal to the development of the highest intelligence; and the other, 
"Everyone is just as good as I" is certainly the just reading; a 
reading that will stimulate one to help others to enjoy whatever 
opportunities he enjoys. When one says, "Everyone is just as good 
as I am" it does not, however, make him feel that he will expose 
himself to all the evils that large numbers are now subject to. I 
believe that this reading has led many citizens, in the interests of 
what they falsely believe to be patriotism, to send their children to 
the public schools. They say, "The public schools are those in which 
the majority are to be brought up ; it is best for my child to mingle 
with the majority. I know, of course, that the children come from 
different classes of homes, but I must trust my child to have the 
strength to resist the influences of the lower homes." To my mind, 
one might just as well say, "I must trust the body of my child, 
kept always cleanly at home, to resist disease when among children 
suffering with measles and smallpox. He will, of course, have power 
of health to resist and he will learn how to defend himself." We 
all know that it is disease and not health that is contagious. On 
the moral plane, unfortunately, and still more sadly there than on 
the physical plane, it is not health that is contagious, but disease. 
On the mental plane, it is not strength that is contagious, although 
strength is stimulating. When we have this fallacious conception 
of the duty imposed by democracy, we go down hill and not up. 

These are mere suggestions of the advantages of the private 
school, but after all is said and done, it is for the personal touch 
which it affords that I make my plea. I had — if one may refer to 
one's experience — perhaps as happy an experience in public schools 
as one could have. I had six happy years in the high school of 
Indianapolis where my first personal acquaintance with co-education 
of large numbers came; and I know that although I had all that 
a teacher could have in the way of support and recognition in a 
public school, and modestly think I had all the success that under 
the conditions one could have, I was constantly agonized because of 

32 



the impossibility to have personal relations with the pupils, and 
because of the impossibility of giving to the pupils any opportunity 
for a free expression of themselves. That is one of the points I 
wish to make. One of the claims that the private school may make 
is, that it not only gives greater opportunity to the teacher to adapt 
his instruction to the individual powers and nature of the particular 
child, but it also affords the child an opportunity for self-expres- 
sion. On this chance of free expression under critical attention, 
rest both the development of character and the preservation of our 
language. One who has any reverence for the English language, 
any respect for its purity, any admiration for its richness, cannot 
deny that it is now imperiled by the very institution to which we once 
looked for its perpetuity. The richness and the refinement of English 
may both be maintained if we make the struggle ; but we know that 
in the large classes of the public schools where pupils may be called 
on to recite but two or three times a week, the condition does not 
exist which renders it possible for the child so far to express his 
mind as to learn how to use language and to give the teacher the 
slightest opportunity to obtain a glimpse into the workings of his 
mind. In the private school where the opposite condition exists, is 
the splendid opportunity. By the future increase of teachers in the 
public schools the disparity between the private and the public school 
may be diminished, but never will a public system supported by 
taxation make it possible for the teacher to do, what to my mind it 
is the great and splendid privilege of the private school to do, viz. : 
examine each mind by itself, treat each pupil as a unit, lead each 
into the liberty of free expression, and so develop individuality, 
powers of thinking, and powers of expressing what one thinks. 
Finally, never in the public school can that personal relation be 
established which enables the teacher with perfect freedom to malce 
the development of character the one object always sought. What- 
ever the subject that is being studied, whether it be algebra, geom- 
etry, or a modern or an ancient language, the bringing out of char- 
acter in the lesson and the stimulation of character in the child, 
which require personal acquaintance, personal study and absolute 
freedom of personal relationship, is only possible in an institution 
under individual guidance and in one which gets its impulse from 
individual initiative. I feel that I do not claim too much when I 
claim this. I believe that I am only following very humbly and afar 
off the example of the great teachers of all time. As we look over 
the names of the great teachers they are of the men and the women 

33 



who established individual relations under conditions which per- 
mitted perfect freedom of association with the individual. We go 
back over the list of great names commencing with our contempo- 
raries until we come to the great teachers of antiquity and we find 
that it was the philosopher gathering his few disciples about him 
in the garden who made of each one a spring of living water or 
an altar upon which the celestial fire would burn ; going back of that 
antiquity in thought, not in time, we come to the great Master and 
He, though sometimes He addressed His splendid teachings in para- 
bles to the crowds, selected seventy to be His chosen followers ; from 
the seventy He chose twelve to be the bearers to all times and to all 
races of His individual private instructions; and then when He 
would do His best and when He would speak the word which He 
wished to have carried to the very end of time and by which He 
hoped to modify the issues of eternity. He sat apart with one chosen 
pupil, and by virtue of the acquaintance which had been acquired by 
personal association touched to flame the tongue of him who should 
carry forward His word. 

The Chairman : 

May I repeat the request that any who will take part in the 
informal discussion to follow will send their names to the platform 
that they may be properly invited and announced. 

This discussion will be continued now by one who has peculiar 
title to speak with authority and to be heard with attention, for he 
has had a leading part to play in the organization into efficiency of 
that unique system of schools known as The Friends' School. I have 
the honor to introduce Mr. J. Henry Bartlett, Superintendent of the 
Friends' Select School, Philadelphia. 

Mr. Bartlett: 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I shall not be in the way of the impor- 
tant appointment on the program for twelve o'clock for my paper 
is brief. 

When William Penn came to Philadelphia he found that the 
Society of Friends by action in their Monthly Meeting, had set up 
a school. One of his first efforts was to have this school chartered 
and after the lapse of two hundred years it is interesting to note 
the significance of this charter. Plainly it said, then as now, that 
education is a public not a private function. The word "Publick" 
indeed is used in the charter, and while without doubt the word was 
intended in the sense in which it is now applied to the great boarding 

34 



schools in England, this meaning could not be better defined than 
in the phrase of the charter which says that the education of youth 
is in order for them "to serve their country." Not a little hostility 
is at times implied in the use of the term "private school" as con- 
trasted with "public school." Doubtless this hostility has grown 
out of the fact that some proprietary schools have made merchan- 
dise, as it were, of their educational wares and have seemed to scorn 
the larger outlook and endeavor for educational advance. 

In treating therefore the subject assigned for this discussion it 
seems necessary to urge that the function of the endowed academy 
or of the private high school does not differ in essence from the 
function of the public schools. It is indeed the limitation of the 
public system that makes the private system a necessity. It may 
then be safely assumed that the two systems are similar if not co-ex- 
tensive. As servants of a common cause we may regard them as 
parts of one system even though they be supplementary and in some 
particulars very different from each other. "No system of secondary 
education can be effective," says the great English inspector of 
schools, M. E. Sadler, "unless it is a really national thing." But at 
the same time we remember that the same authority says, "We need 
variety of curricula, variety of experiment," and while a national 
system or a state system does not exclude this variety, a painful 
tendency to uniformity is safe-guarded by an arrangement that per- 
mits different systems in the field at one time. So long therefore 
as the management of schools both public and private recognizes 
that the education of youth is in order to fit them "to serve their 
country," the two systems have a unity of purpose that makes it 
possible for them to fit together and to work together. 

Emphasizing the fact that education is a public and not a private 
function need not obscure the points of difference between a so-called 
public and private system. These differences are not a constant 
quantity. They represent for the most part an unstable condition of 
society due often to the vicissitudes of politics. So when it is said 
that "the function of the endowed academy or of the private high 
school" specializes into leadership no affront is implied to the so- 
called public system. This leadership is not leadership in the sense of 
superiority. Much of the best school work all the while is done by 
the public schools. But public school men everywhere are hampered 
by lack of funds, by lack of educational spirit in the community, by 
"formalism and officialism" to the point of distraction, so that leader- 
ship in the sense of being pioneers in educational practice devolves 

35 



much more easily upon the private or endowed system. There are 
striking exceptions to this statement on either hand. Communities 
sometimes get into such an educational fervor that public resources 
are placed in the hands of school men without limit. In this way some 
of the most striking leaders of educational practice have been de- 
veloped. On the other hand the natural tendency of the endowed 
system is to conservatism to such an extent, at times, as to bar the 
wheels of progress. These exceptions, however, are put down as 
exceptions while the progressive element in the educational com- 
munity uses the private and endowed school to secure the progress 
which is denied them in the public school system. 

With your permission I shall illustrate this pioneer leadership by 
two common examples taken from current educational discussion. 
President Butler of Columbia has defined the child's fivefold inher- 
itance as "scientific, literary, aesthetic, institutional and religious." 
The public schools have been active and successful in all these fields 
except the last. In the matter of religious education a growing 
feeling of discontent is heard on every hand. Bishop Coadjutor 
Greer of New York has given the extreme statement of the case 
in these striking words: "We are bringing up all over this broad 
land a lusty set of young pagans who sooner or later, they or their 
children, will make havoc of our institutions." Discussing the same 
subject the honored United States Commissioner of Education, Dr. 
Harris, says it is clear that the state cannot successfully undertake 
religious instruction, and in a series of brilliant syllogisms Dr. Harris 
attempts to prove that religious instruction apart from denomina- 
tional instruction is impossible. That other statement of the case, 
however, never more ably put than by a leader in this very University 
to the National Educational Association the past summer, that the 
child's nature is so essentially religious that teaching can not possibly 
be strictly secular, will continue to have reenforcement from the 
daily experience of an army of teachers all over the land. And 
is it not true that for more than a score of years our colleges 
have been developing a religious atmosphere that in the main is 
clear of the taint of sectarianism ? 

In the same way it has been easily possible for the private and 
endowed schools to exericse a leadership in this matter. Some of 
them distinctly aim at denominational teaching only to find that the 
child's mind lacks the discrimination for specific difiference which 
is after all the basis of denominations. Speaking broadly, the life 
of these institutions is deeply religious. Unhampered by bigoted 

36 



zealots many of them have gone forward and blazoned the way for 
relief from the impossible effort to keep religion out of the schools. 
I take it that this is not bare assertion. In cities where private 
and endowed schools abound, even under denominational manage- 
ment, a very great variety of patronage representing every faith 
finds satisfaction and makes no charge of denominational bias. In 
the face of such experience even the logic of Dr. Harris fails, and 
while we recognize that authority is the basis of religious instruc- 
tion, as he says, we are reminded that a true educational experience 
may even enlarge or change our ideas of authority. Happily this 
enlargement of ideas has found voice in the monumental work of 
Professor Coe, and we have not only an experience of progress in 
religious education in some of our private schools, but a statement of 
this progress as well in the remarkable chapter on authority in "The 
Religion of a Mature Mind." Let this suffice therefore for the first 
illustration of leadership of the private and endowed system, and if 
the way for general practice in religious education is at all made 
clear by the experience thus claimed for the private and endowed 
system, let us rejoice. 

The second illustration of leadership to which I shall ask atten- 
tion is quite aside from this of religious education. Superintendent 
Seaver of Boston in writing of the "Twentieth Century High 
School" emphasizes five points of peculiar excellence that may rightly 
be expected of it. The fifth of these points is "supreme regard to 
health." We live in a high-pressure age and in too many instances 
the private system of education meets a demand for quick prepara- 
tion for college or specialized preparation for life. In the main, 
however, and as a system it seems fair to claim that private and 
endowed schools have a very great advantage and have taken a 
lead in a "supreme regard to health." Any considerable elaboration 
of physical education is costly. To meet its ends attention is neces- 
sary to pupils as individuals. Advance has been made in developing 
a rational system applicable to groups and to classes, but we are 
only yet in the beginning of the battle. It is the duty and the 
privilege of the private school to lead in it. But "supreme regard 
to health" has a much wider scope than is implied in a mere system 
of physical education. It includes all that is known in the sciences 
of sanitation and ventilation, it includes questions of diet and sleep, 
of work and play. It means that the school must be projected into 
the home and the home into the school. And I acknowledge that 
all this is done by some public schools. The point for which I 

37 



contend is that it is specially the function of the private and endowed 
system to work out means and methods by which it can be easily 
possible for all schools. 

These two illustrations must suffice to make clear my meaning 
in saying that the specialized function of the private and endowed 
system is leadership. I have made no mention of such subjects as 
the "Mediation between College and School," the "Cultivation of a 
Professional Spirit in Teachers," the "Use of the Laboratory Meth- 
ods in Teaching," the "Reduction of the Number of Pupils per 
Teacher," the "Promotion of Bright and Slow Children," the "Limits 
between Elementary and Secondary Education," and a score of others 
which find a voice in our educational literature. These all might 
be used to illustrate the call for experiment and leadership in 
different parts of our country. You readily recognize that the 
defects of the public school system in one place may be its merits in 
another, and until the public system shall become perfectly versatile 
the private system will thus have a charter for service. That this 
service may be in harmony with the public system and that in 
William Penn's noble words it may train the youth "to serve their 
country" should be the devoted pledge of every one of us. 

Pre;side;nt FuIvIvEr: 

President Fuller of Drury College was at the last moment prevented from 
attending the Conference. His paper is here inserted. 

There are four or five strong reasons for the establishment and 
maintenance of private secondary schools. 

I. They are necessary to afford opportunity for secondary edu- 
cation to the youth of sparsely settled agricultural districts. The 
public high school is for the city or the town whose population can 
be counted by thousands; the academy is for counties or large sec- 
tions of States. More than three-quarters of the habitable area of 
the United States between the oceans is unreached by high schools 
and is situated much as most of northern New England was fifty 
years ago. Then there were only five towns in New Hampshire 
and the same number in Vermont that supported schools with 
curricula ample enough to prepare for the average Eastern college. 
The majority of students entering college came from academies, and 
a large percentage of the members of college classes now coming 
from these States — though the proportion is distinctly smaller — ^has 
been trained by the same schools. Northern Michigan and Wis- 
consin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, large sections of Nebraska and 
Kansas, indeed most of the territory between the Mississippi river 

38 



and the Rockies have today need of similar schools, or are dependent 
upon them. Only six towns in the southern half of Missouri have 
high schools offering four years' courses in Latin, and only one of 
these makes any provision for instruction in Greek. Only about one- 
half the counties of Missouri have high schools with even three 
years' courses of study, and less than one-fourth of the counties of 
Arkansas have high schools doing more than two years of proper 
secondary work. The same may be said of most of the other South- 
ern States. But for the enterprise and generosity of Christian 
churches or their members, there would be few links between the 
common school and the college. This condition, indeed, has forced 
our Western colleges and some of our State Universities to organize 
and maintain preparatory departments. As population thickens the 
high school will more occupy the field, but for generations yet the 
academy or its equivalent, in some form, must supplement insufficient 
municipal provision for secondary training. 

2. There will always be need of the academy or private school, 
even in regions where high schools are supported, for the sake of 
wider differentiation in teaching than is possible in any but the very 
largest public high schools. Average high schools must be much 
alike, suited in programs and methods to average students, to aver- 
age ability, health and ambition, to the demands common to the 
majority of pupils. But for the few who have exceptional tastes 
and adaptations, as for wide attainments in language, music, art, 
elocution, or handicraft, or for those who are deficient in endurance 
or physical vigor, for the dull or wayward, or others with special 
idiosyncracies, there are requisite schools shaped for one or more of 
these classes. Only the large cities can maintain different schools 
giving instruction in classics, modern language, science, and manual 
training. 

Public schools must be chiefly mixed schools, that is, co-educa- 
tional. While this is generally best, yet every experienced teacher 
must admit that there are many boys that should be educated by 
themselves, perhaps, purely for physical reasons, and that, also, 
many girls need mothering more judicious than they can get at 
home, and teaching more gentle and patient, and example more 
gracious than men can give. 

The modern academy and private school undertakes very largely 
to furnish homes for non-resident pupils; the public high school 
never. These homes are also the homes of teachers who generally 
have executive ability, tact, culture, and Christian devotion. The 

39 



atmosphere of these homes is refining. Regularity of personal habits, 
of diet, sleep and exercise, is prescribed and practiced, there is 
gentleness and courtesy and much else that broadens and sweetens 
life and that the mere recitation room can never afford. 

Sanitary and climatic conditions unfavorable for good health at 
home often create or intensify demand for educational facilities in 
better localities. It is becoming more and more felt that while cities 
are the best places for professional and technical training, yet they 
are not for secondary education nor for the earlier college years. 
Too much social diversion and too close proximity to the whirl of 
business is often fatal to that unbroken persistence in study and that 
continuity of thought which is essential to the best mental discipline. 
"One cannot hear the sound of the great babel and not feel its stir." 

Furthermore, in the growth of industries and occupations, like 
railway and mail service, sales-work and mining, which keep men 
away from their families — and there are now millions of such men — 
there is increasing tendency to send boys as well as girls to good 
home schools, because in such case there cannot be proper oversight 
in the family home. For these reasons and for the sake of the 
better moral atmosphere, Eastern academies are largely filled with 
boys from Western cities, and Eastern girl colleges are crowded to 
overflowing. I believe that academies and private high schools are 
to be in evidence quite as much in the future as ever, but they must 
be home schools well equipped and considerably endowed. 

3. The academy tends to develop superior instruction from the 
greater freedom accorded there to the good teacher. His personality 
counts for more. He can try experiments, adapt better his teaching 
to individuals, vary the work with different classes according to the 
capacity or ambition of its members more than is possible under a 
superintendent of machinery or in a vise where others are turning the 
screws. Compare the horse that works in a treadmill with the racer 
on an open track, or the driver of a mule team with him who "holds 
the ribbons" after thoroughbreds. 

I always think of the academy teacher as like the old charioteer 
who drives with loosened reins. He bends over and lets fly. — 
"Curru volans dat lora secundo." He is the more dependent on 
himself and therefore the more independent. That fact quickens his 
energies and incites him to do his best. Imagine, if you can. Dr. 
Arnold of Rugby or "Uncle Sam" Taylor of Andover making world 
wide reputations in public high schools ! even in this country where 
there are less trammels than on the continent ! 

40 



The independent academy teacher can draw pupils from the wide 
world. No one man at the head of such a school will attract all 
kinds of pupils, but, once his reputation established some parents 
will say: "That is the sort of man I would like to have my boy 
under," or "that other school has a woman in it who will best 
mould my daughter." American students go to Germany not so 
much to study at the universities as to hear certain men. University 
freedom has contributed to make these men famous. But the freest 
educator in this county is not the public high school principal, nor 
the college or university professor, but the head of a secondary 
school that is not an adjunct of any other educational institution. 
"I had rather be the head of a mouse than the tail of a rat," said 
a very successful head master of an academy when once invited to 
a college professorship. 

4. But, finally, the most important function of the Christian 
academy or private high school — for most of these are founded and 
guided by Christian men and women — is to provide a stronger and 
more positive moral and religious atmosphere than the public high 
school can possibly furnish. Said a Western lawyer: "I can get 
just as good class instruction for my boys in my own city, but I 
send them to an Eastern school for the better moral uplift." And he 
was a trustee both of a college and of an academy in that city. This 
positive moral and religious — but by no means sectarian — influence 
has been the chief glory of the best independent preparatory schools 
of New England and the Middle States — of Phillips Andover, St. 
Paul's, St. Johnsbury, Wilbraham, Lawrenceville School and many 
others. The daily chapel exercises, the weekly student prayer meet- 
ings, the Bible study whether prescribed or voluntary, the outside 
Sunday School and mission work in which the students in all these 
schools more or less engage point to more responsible service in the 
church and lead naturally to it. They form the habit of Christian 
work. For nearly a century the older of these academies and other 
equivalent schools have, quite as much as the colleges, given us the 
bone and sinew of the Christian ministry at home, a large propor- 
tion of our foreign missionaries, many of our best educators and not 
a few of the laymen now foremost in the work of the church. 

One such academy in the small State of New Hampshire, where 
more than once in a single term a hundred conversions were reck- 
oned, and that with scarcely a ripple of interruption of the usual 
daily tasks, gave impulse to consecration to Christian work to at 
least four ministers who have become college presidents, to a dozen 

41 



or more who have held college professorships, to secretaries of 
church boards, to scores of useful pastors and to many eminent 
lawyers, physicians, editors and business men who have sprinkled 
every northern city. Some of them are in Chicago, Milwaukee, 
Minneapolis, Cleveland and St. Louis. Such men as President 
Tucker of Dartmouth, Dr. Francis E. Clark of Christian Endeavor 
fame. Rev. Dr. Battershall of Albany, and Dr. F. A. Noble, recently 
of Chicago, were graduates of this academy. This same school 
trained seven teachers for service in Southwestern Missouri. Four 
of them went directly from it about 1858 to points within forty miles 
of Springfield, Mo., where they taught in log school houses for two 
or three years before the civil war. Their influence still abides in 
the vigorous and beneficent lives of men who are foremost in church 
and state from St. Louis to Texas. Said one of these, editor now 
of one of the strongest religious journals published in the West, 
"I owe all I am to Hall," — one of these teachers. And I have heard 
similar tributes to others of this pioneer band. 

But what is true of the fruits of this typical academy in New 
Hampshire is also true in larger or less measure of the graduates of 
many other secondary schools in both the East and the Middle West. 
The churches cannot spare such schools. Conversions in them are 
five times as numerous as in colleges with equal numbers, and more 
strongly than almost any other human agency they give initiative 
and impulse to consecrated Christian endeavor. 

In the transitions of the future some of these schools will un- 
doubtedly disappear, especially where high schools thicken, but others 
will be re-enforced, better equipped and endowed. The preparatory 
departments of Western colleges will not always be necessary. They 
are but temporary expedients chiefly for economical reasons. But 
so far they have been extremely useful, and some of them will con- 
tinue for years to develop and strengthen and sweeten the lives 
of thousands of young people who cannot afford more expensive 
schools, and who through them are led into paths of highest useful- 
ness. It is significant of the trend of thought of wise and generous 
spirits, and of their appreciation of the need of secondary schools 
beyond those connected with a public school system, that some of 
the best equipped and endowed fitting schools of this country, as the 
Lawrenceville School of New Jersey and the Jacob Tome School of 
Maryland are of recent establishment. May other givers emulate 
their example and may some of these gifts fall upon open and choice 
spots of the West to supplement home missionary work and other 

42 



educational facilities, to introduce to the higher Christian college, and 
above all to turn the hearts of the flower of our youth from mere 
money getting to service in the kingdom of God. 

The Chairman : 

Before this discussion is continued any further President James 
has some announcements to make. 

President James: 

I should like, in the first place, to extend again what has already 
been extended by letter to all the delegates to this Conference, viz, : 
An invitation to attend all the exercises connected with the Fisk 
Celebration. The word alumni as used in this announcement is to 
be understood to apply to all former students whether graduates or 
not, and all such persons are included in this invitation. 

An attempt has been made to reach by letter all the former 
students of the Academy, and if there are any in attendance at this 
Conference who have not communicated with us we shall be greatly 
pleased if you will leave your address at the office. We intend to 
publish a list of all students who have matriculated in the Academy ; 
that list we know is something over seven thousand. We have the 
addresses of five thousand. All alumni are requested to look over 
the lists at the office and see if they can give us any information. 

The Chairman : 

As suggested, this session will not be continued one moment 
after 12: 15. It will be necessary therefore to ask those who take 
part in the discussion to limit themselves to five minutes. I have 
the names of one or two who will take part. We shall now be glad 
to hear from Brother Justin, President of the Christian Brothers' 
College, St. Louis. 

Brother Justin : 

Mr. President : I have come here first of all to pay my respects 
to Principal Fisk, second to thank you gentlemen for your very kind 
invitation, and third to express my admiration at the spirit that 
characterizes this gathering. I have attended convocations of this 
kind in England, Ireland, France, Belgium and Canada. I was 
inspector of schools in England and I have always found an immense 
profit to the cause of education in gatherings of this character. The 
time is very limited, but the discussion has proved so interesting that 
I thought I would say a word. It may not be very much, but I 
am satisfied of one thing, and that is that our public school system 
is necessary. No great nation today can hold its place without a 

43 



national public school system. The order of the day is education. 
The fact that one system may produce more advanced scholars than 
another is not the vital fact. The first duty of every system is to 
teach the child to know God his Father and to serve Him, and the 
child that does that is sure to love his country and be ready to 
defend it in the hour of trial. All our institutions, our liberty, and 
our civilization are the outcome of Christianity. The American 
nation is a Christian nation. Insomuch as the private school is 
in a position to teach this truth from the very fact of its being a 
private school, it is to be commended. A few years ago I happened 
to be inspector of the private schools of our organization in the 
State of New York. The present bishop asked me to give him 
Brothers to teach a private school of Poles in the city of Buffalo 
which would number about one thousand boys. His sole object was 
that these Poles should be made thoroughly American as well as 
Christian, that they should be taught to know and love this country, 
to become homogeneous citizens of this greatest and best of the 
nations. "There is no way of doing that," the Bishop said, "but 
to teach them the moral obligations that they owe to their God, 
which include love of their country." Before I had time to carry 
out that project I was sent to Europe and I have not seen Bishop 
Quigley since. The fact that we Catholics teach a million of children 
at our own expense, costing twenty millions of dollars, is an evidence 
that we believe that the fundamental idea for the building up of a 
great nation is that there is a God and that the child must be made 
aware of this; that if he is not faithful to his country, if he sells 
his vote, if he bribes or takes a bribe, that he is guilty of a grievous 
crime against God first and his country next. Now, that thing 
cannot be inculcated in the public schools as they exist I admit, for 
I went to the public school in New York over fifty years ago and 
I therefore know something about them. Then, my friends, the 
idea that we should all work for is the building up of the nation, 
the perfecting of our way of bringing home to the boy and the girl 
the idea of responsibility in its broadest sense, not founded on the 
obligation to the country alone for there is something above and 
beyond the country and that is God, the Father of all of us. The 
idea ought to be more in the public school than it is. I know it is 
very difficult to put it there. It should be there. We must find a 
way of putting it there or lose our Christianity. I thank you, ladies 
and gentlemen. 



44 



The Chairman : 

There must be a thorn in every rose and there must be a chair- 
man to cut people off, even though he be unpopular with the audi- 
ence. The next speaker is Mrs. Helen E. Starrett, Principal of Mrs. 
Starrett's School for Girls, Chicago. 

Mrs. Starrett: 

I remember once to have heard President Jordan of the Stanford 
University asked what he thought of co-educational colleges for 
girls, and he replied, "It depends on the girl." I think that is 
exactly the answer to the question, "What is the function of the 
private school?" It depends on the pupil. I think the function of 
the private school is to take the children of parents who think their 
children would do better in a private than in a public school and 
do the very best possible for them. I think if a parent had been 
here this morning, who was debating in his mind whether he should 
send his child to a public or a private school, he would have seen very 
clearly the points made in favor of the private school : the possibility 
of individual attention ; the possibility of personal relation to teachers 
who should be all that teachers in all schools ought to be — a personal 
inspiration; and the possibility of religious instruction if the parent 
so desired. But the main point in my mind is that it can never be 
decided by any but by the parents who know what the needs of their 
children are. As I came to this meeting I stopped at Wilmette where 
lives a daughter who last year had two little boys in my private 
school. I heard these children talking last night and I thought them 
better off in the public school. One said to the other, "I am going 
to play such and such a game tomorrow." The other replied, "If 
you get hurt and you cry you can't play." "How do you know?" 
"Well, the first time I played I cried and they put me right out of 
the game." I said to the boy, "Don't you cry now?" "You bet I 
don't," was his answer. I think this experience cured him of one 
of his failings. Right after breakfast this morning both the children 
began clamoring to be prepared for school. They did not come in 
time when attending my school. I said to my daughter, "What is 
the influence brought to bear to bring these children to school in 
time ?" "Well," said she, "it is the principal." I said, "Is he cross ?" 
She replied, "I don't know what he does, but they are dreadfully 
afraid of being late." Here was another failing cured in the public 
schools. On the other hand, I have a little granddaughter in my 
school of whom I think it would be unfortunate to have her in the 
public school. She needs a great deal of tender, personal supervision. 

45 



I think the function of the private school is to do the very best 
possible for the children of parents who think it is a good thing to 
send their children to such schools, and they alone are to be the 
judges. 

The; Chairman : 

Mrs. Sewall suggests that one especial question raised by Mrs. 
Starrett was not so much as to the value of the private school as it 
was a suggestion of grandmother's private schools. 

We shall now hear from Professor Fischer of Wheaton College. 

Professor Fischer: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: My time is short so I hope you will 
allow me to express all my admiration of Evanston in one sentence. 
It is almost as good as Wheaton. Perhaps if I had known Evanston 
longer I should say it was quite as good. I also wish to be under- 
stood as being an admirer of the public schools. I have had eight 
children members of public schools. They are almost as good as 
the private schools. So many good things have been said for the 
private schools that it is hardly worth while to spend much time 
talking about them, but I wish to emphasize a few of the points 
"Lest we forget." I especially wish to have all who are connected 
with private schools understand what it is that differentiates the 
private school from the public school, because if it is not so differ- 
entiated it has no function. There are plenty of high schools, plenty 
of public schools, and therefore without desiring to be invidious 
we must be permitted to emphasize those things that make the private 
school different from the public school. Let me repeat them: the 
change of location and surroundings made possible to the pupil; 
this of itself is often of very great help in the building of character. 
I wish to disagree, although I dislike to do it, with one statement 
made by the lady on the platform, and that is that morals — good 
morals are not contagious. I think they are. Let me give one 
illustration. A few years ago in one of the most prominent law 
schools — perhaps the most prominent law school in the country — 
there was a banquet of the first year class. At that banquet three of 
the members of the class abstained from using wine. The language 
at the after-dinner or after-wine speeches was not altogether appro- 
priate to an occasion where gentlemen are supposed to be assembled. 
The year following the same banquet was held and because three 
of the members of the class at the first banquet refused to drink 
and refused to give their assent to some of the talk that was not 

46 



profitable, the next year wine was entirely banished from the banquet 
and the conversation was such as any lady might have listened to. 
Good morals are contagious and if in the private school we can 
have the good morals in the teachers and in the students represented 
more largely than in the public school then there is certainly a place 
for the private school. Then again the character of the teacher, the 
possibility of impressing the personality of the teacher on the pupil 
must be considered. The teacher teaches himself of course. In 
treating with individuals the public schools grind them all through 
the same machine in education; though they do make one excep- 
tion, perhaps, for if the student has been unable to maintain the 
pace he either drops back or makes up. Well, a patch in education 
is better than a hole, but after all it might be better to have the 
system so elastic that there need not be any patching. 

The Chairman : 

There are just two minutes to hear from the next speaker. Dr. 
Berle, pastor of the Union Park Congregational Church, was until 
very lately heard in and around the city of Boston, where I first 
heard and knew him. 

Dr. Berle: 

There is just one word that occurred to me in this discussion and 
I want to refer it back to Principal Stearns' address. I want to 
speak for the unofficial educators. In the fifteen or sixteen years of 
my ministry for every year there have been at least two men or | 

women who have gone to college. Two weeks ago I was walking ] 

with one of the last of these boys in whose heart a yearning for col- ^ 

lege had come. He told me as we passed a hotel that that was one of 
the hotels from which his class at Harvard had been excluded for 
holding their class dinners. This was the third hotel to make such a 
rule. One hotel had a list of five such classes. These were the 
facts. He told me that there were several classes from neighboring 
academies which were also excluded. I should like to raise this 
question and refer it back to that point in Principal Stearns' address 
which had to do with the moral impulse. It is as Dean Briggs of 
Harvard said when somebody asked, "What do you do to our boys 
at Cambridge that so soon they lose all the habits we tried to teach 
them?" Dean Briggs said, "What kind of boys do you send to 
us that in six months they lose all the habits you tried to inculcate ?" 
The whole nation is on the verge of a moral crisis. New York is 
endeavoring to settle one phase of it this morning. This' morning 

47 



the condition in Chicago reveals a state of affairs which justifies 
more fully President Eliot's statement that all our education, public 
and private, has not sensibly diminished the barbarian practices of 
drinking and gambling while the whole social system trembles on 
the verge of collapse. I simply want to ask as one of the multitude 
of ministers who send to you the boys and the girls whether upon 
you does not rest a greater need than the training of the Nation's 
intelligence — the finding of its moral sense and rescuing it for the 
country and for God. 

The Chairman : 

I am sure that we all feel that this discussion from the first has 
maintained the very highest tone and we have been inspired and 
instructed. The only thing to be considered now is luncheon. We 
are now adjourned. 



48 



SECOND SESSION. 



Friday, October 30, i :oo p. m. 
President James: 

I should like to make one or two announcements. I see that many 
more delegates have turned up this morning than sent us word they 
were coming and consequently many names do not appear on our 
printed list of delegates. You will find some of the gentlemen wear- 
ing buttons labeled in ink. They are gentlemen who did not tell 
us they were coming and therefore we did not print their names. 
Of course we have the same experience with the instructions to 
delegates as is usually the case with college catalogues, nobody 
understands them. I am beginning to think that this program is 
very difficult to make out, and I find it still more difficult to get 
people to read the program and find out what is expected of them. 
I shall be very much obliged if you will read the program carefully. 
At the close of the discussion arrangements have been made to 
provide guides for those who are to be entertained. That detail will 
be explained later. This evening at 8:00 p. m. will occur the anni- 
versary oration. We should like to have all our delegates join the 
procession in the basement of the First Methodist Church at 7:30. 
We want to be in the church and start the program promptly at 
eight o'clock. To do that it is necessary to be there by 7:30. For 
those of you who are here from the city of Chicago we have made 
arrangements so that you can get dinner this evening, and if you 
will apply at the desk at the close of the session you will receive 
tickets. This evening at the close of the anniversary oration the 
procession will go to the Evanston Club where a reception will be 
tendered the delegates and visitors to the Conference, and the rest 
of our friends, namely the alumni of the Academy, will be received 
in the Literary Society rooms of this building after the oration 
tonight. 

I am very glad to be able to state that President Strong of the 
University of Kansas will preside this afternoon. 

49 



President Strong: 

I am very glad to do anything to assist this Conference for a 
good many reasons which I will not take time to tell about except 
that one must be interested in the public high school who received his 
college fitting in the public school, and who taught in the public high 
school for a long time, and who is connected with a public university. 
The private schools no doubt have their place and their problems, 
but the great problems of education have got to be solved in con- 
nection with the public school system. We of the State University 
feel that the problem cannot be separated into parts. It is to stand 
or fall together. The first part of our discussion this afternoon is on 
"What is the True Function of the Free Public High School?" and 
the second part is on "What is the Efifect of the System of Accredit- 
ing Schools by the Universities upon the High School and its Devel- 
opment ?" The formal discussion of the first of these two topics must 
close at 4:00 o'clock, after which the second topic will be taken up. 
At the conclusion of the formal papers on the second part of the 
program, both topics will be thrown open for general discussion. 
The first speaker is W. J. S. Bryan, Principal of the High School, 
St. Louis, Mo. 

Principal Bryan : 

In what I shall say this afternoon I trust there is no controversial 
element. I shall not say one word in disparagement of the private 
schools or that would seem to indicate that I underrate their value. 
If their function is the same as that of the free public high school, 
well and good, they are helping us in our work which needs all the 
helpers it can get. If they have a separate function then they are 
striving to perform that function and we wish them God speed in 
their work. I shall therefore seek to present from a positive stand- 
point and not from a negative standpoint what I may have to say 
with reference to the function of the free public high school. I 
may say that my heart and life are in this work; that I owe to the 
public high school all that I am or ever shall be, and that it has re- 
ceived from me the services not of teacher alone but of one who 
recognizes its claims to his gratitude and to all that his life and 
service can bestow. 



SO 



WHAT IS THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE FREE PUBLIC 
HIGH SCHOOL? 

The purpose of education in the last analysis will be found to 
be one, though its phases are various. Its object is the perfecting of 
the individual human being to the extent of his capacity for develop- 
ment under existing limitations of time and circumstance. The idea 
that the individual exists for the state has given place to the broader 
generalization that the true state exists for the good of the individual. 
Then only is there indisputable reason for the existence of the 
state, and the stability and perpetuity of the state can be secured 
only on this basis. Moreover, the well-being of each individual 
composing the state is indissolubly connected with the well-being 
of every other member of the community. Whether he will or no, 
every man is his brother's keeper and is in his brother's keeping. 
Social obligations and interests are reciprocal. Through the institu- 
tions of the family, the church, the school, the state, individuals 
have attained their highest development. This must ever be, for 
man is a social being ; alone he is feeble, v/retched, forlorn ; through 
organization with his fellows he finds himself, his strength, his 
power, his capacity, his sphere of activity, his happiness. The con- 
verse of this proposition is also true. The community whether 
large or small needs the strength, the activity, the capacity of ever}' 
individual member and cannot attain its perfection if deprived of 
the contribution of a single unit. The greatness of this nation, its 
growth, its perpetuity, is dependent upon the opportunity for de- 
velopment afforded each individual. The contribution of the free 
public schools to our greatness as a nation has been generally 
acknowledged, but not fully appreciated. The spirit of republican 
institutions is incompatible with restricted educational opportunities. 
As a matter of public policy, individual inclination alone should fix 
the maximum limit of free public education, and statutory require- 
ments should determine the minimum limit, as a matter of public 
safety. 

The idea that virtue, virility, courage, honor, truth, intelligence, 
power of accomplishment are confined to any exclusive class or are 
hereditary is not to be entertained for a moment in this country, 
in the face of overwhelming proofs of its falseness. That higher 
education is only for those whose fathers are able to pay for it is 

51 



a doctrine few even of those so circumstanced would admit, and 
none whose financial condition would exclude them from the privi- 
leged class. To carry it out practically would now be impossible, 
for men everywhere know that such action would impoverish the 
community adopting it, and retard its progress by compelling it to 
seek elsewhere for its directive talent and for those of less ability 
who wish for their children all the advantages of education. The 
complex social organization of today demands educated men and 
women in increasingly large numbers. Communities have not been 
slow to recognize their needs or to note the source of supply ; hence 
the remarkable increase of free public high schools in the last ten 
years. 

The free public high school is an organic part of the system of 
free public schools that has developed in this country, and it is not 
to be considered as a thing apart from the more elementary schools 
of the system. Its pupils have had presumably the training afforded 
by eight years of teaching in the elementary grades. They are 
drawn from every condition and walk in life, but have in common 
possession certain groups of ideas, certain elements of knowledge, 
certain habits of promptness, attention, industry, neatness, truthful- 
ness, obedience, gentility. It is the function of the free public high 
school to take these children at the age of fourteen or thereabouts 
and on the foundation already started lay still other courses which 
shall prepare for a superstructure whose character is to be deter- 
mined by inclination, or environment, or to speak plainly, it is the 
function of the free public high school to carry on for four years 
the work begun in the lower grades, to discover and reveal to the 
pupils the power they possess, often unconsciously, to develop and 
fix habits of thoughtful study, to stimulate and strengthen by use the 
faculty of reflection or generalization, to nourish every helpful trait 
of character and to repress or displace every undesirable tendency 
before it becomes pronounced. The primary schools take the child 
from the home and upon such foundation as they find lay such 
courses as they may with such changes as seem desirable and are 
possible. From the primary school the secondary school must take 
him with all his imperfections as well as accomplishments upon him. 
This inexperienced, immature boy or girl must be given a broad 
view of the world of nature and of man; he must be shown the 
fields of human effort and achievement, he must be put in conscious 
possession of himself, he must learn how to apply the power he has 
to whatever task may present itself, he must be taught to use the 

52 



printed page as a storehouse of useful information with which he 
may supplement his own knowledge ; he must be made familiar with 
the steps in the growth of civilization, with the history of the race ; 
he must be imbued with the inestimable importance of integrity of 
character and purity of motive and spirituality of ideals, as a pre- 
ventive of greed of gain, unscrupulous scheming and grossness of 
desire ; he must be inspired with the thought of service to humanity 
as the worthiest of motives and with the possibility of noble achieve- 
ments for those who really will to serve their fellows. There are in 
the free public high schools hundreds of thousands of youths, a large 
percentage of all the youth of the land, who are being educated for 
positions of influence and power as leaders of men in commerce, 
manufacture, politics, education, art, literature, religion. 

It is the function of the free public high school to train these 
youths at the most critical period of their lives, the period of 
adolescence. They enter children; they go forth young men and 
women. The development of these four years is very rapid and very 
great. The effect of training is greater then than at other periods. 
The work of educating these young men and women is the more 
momentous, not only because of their rapidly increasing numbers, 
but also because of their relative importance in view of the service 
they are to render society. Statistics recently published seem to in- 
dicate that the percentage of eminence is twenty-three times as 
great among those who have had a high school training as among 
those who have had only a grammar school education, and nine 
times as great among those who have had a college training as 
among those who have had only a high school training. The free 
public high schools not only train those who stop short at the con- 
clusion of the course or at some earlier stage, but furnish the 
avenue of access to college training to numbers who otherwise could 
not afford to prepare for higher education. Thus their existence 
serves to give to the community invaluable talent that otherwise 
would have remained concealed and have failed to come to the sur- 
face. The free public high school is the guarantor of access to higher 
education to those who otherwise could not reach it; it prevents 
the division of society into layers or castes, it feeds the ambitions 
and fosters the aspirations of many who without it must despair; 
it benefits the individual and blesses the community. 

In the discussion of the function of the high school, its relation 
to the elementary schools on the one hand and to the colleges or the 
universities on the other is an important consideration, because our 

53 



educational system is not the development of a single plan but the 
combination of several, and the articulation of the parts is not per- 
fect. There is overlapping and falling short. To make the con- 
nection perfect, each part of the proposed system must connect 
with the part from which it is to receive its pupils or students unless 
the whole system is to be a procrustean bed on which to rack the 
individual who would accommodate himself to it. It has been sug- 
gested that the work of the elementary school might be as well done 
in less time if certain unessential parts of the work were omitted 
and power rather than excessive thoroughness were made the object 
of the teaching. However this may be, the high school must take 
the pupils who have completed the course of the elem.entary school 
satisfactorily. Whatever defects there are, whatever immaturity, 
whatever pov^rer to study, whatever ability to think, these pupils 
must be taught, their weaknesses must be noted and strengthened, 
their imimaturity must be considered and met, they must be taught 
to observe accurately, to think clearly and persistently, to vv'ork dili- 
gently and intelligently, to will the right and to do it in obedience to 
their own wills. To complain that more has not been done in the 
elementary schools were vain. It Vv^ere better to locate the line 
of their advance and to take up the march without more ado. In 
like manner, after the high school has done its best for the youths 
who have given four years of their lives to the work of educating 
themselves under its guidance and direction, submitting their bodies, 
minds, and spirits to its disciplinary training, pursuing the courses 
of study provided, exercising their intellects, training their wills, en- 
kindling their imagination, cultivating their tastes, controlling their 
spirits, quickening their consciences, arousing their aspirations for 
the best things, the gates of the college ought to stand wide open 
for their reception on presentation of satisfactory credentials as to 
the quality and quantity of the work accomplished, which might 
well be required to measure up to a standard supplied by approved 
schools or even to stand the test of uniform examinations. It ought 
not to be necessary for the high school to provide special courses 
for those who desire to go to college and surely should not be neces- 
sary to provide a special course for each college. For the schools 
of large cities to prescribe such courses is not impossible, but for 
smaller high schools, the time, attention, and energy required must 
be drawn from the more important work of instructing the large 
majority who are not to go to college. The work of the elementary 
school is not to prepare pupils for the high school ; the work of the 

54 



high school is not to prepare pupils for college ; the function of each 
is the training and development of the individual pupils to as high 
a standard of excellence as their natural capacity, age, and previous 
condition will permit. Incidentally the elementary training does fit 
for secondary training, and in like manner secondary training affords 
the best training for college work, better even than is furnished 
by the narrower training of the strictly preparatory school — ^better 
because more in keeping with the civilization of the times, which has 
modified the curricula of high schools more than the curricula of 
colleges, because they stood nearer the people and were directly 
under the control of the people — ^better because broader in outlook 
and appealing to the sensibility of more pupils or to more sides of 
the nature of each pupil. 

The function of the high school thus appears to be threefold : 

(a) To give to each pupil a distinct vision of the world, the 
world of nature about him instinct with life and subject to divine 
laws whose discovery marks the path of progress in science and has 
made possible the conquest of the material universe and the sub- 
jugation of its forces, the world of man as seen in the history of 
the race, in art, and in literature, and in his ethical relations, in- 
dustrial, commercial, political, social. 

(b) To reveal to each pupil his own nature, physical, intel- 
lectual, spiritual — his powers and capacities, his opportunities and 
obligations, his privileges and responsibilities. 

(c) To put him in possession of himself through discipline of 
body, mind, and will, so that he may take his place among the 
world's productive workers wherever his determination leads the 
way to the goal of his high aspirations. 

By what means this function is performed, what each secondary 
study contributes, what inspiration the intelligent, thoroughly pre- 
pared enthusiastic, tactful teacher may afford, it would be interesting 
to consider were there time for such discussion. 

The Chairman : 

The program will be changed a little, and the next speaker will 
be C. P. Gary, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Madison, 
Wisconsin. 

SUPDRINTENDENT CaRY : 

It is needless to say that it is utterly impossible to prepare a brief 
paper on a large subject and do justice to that subject. 

The free high school serves many masters and must continue to 

55 



do so. In the variety of functions or aims of the high school Hes 
its chief weakness. Unity of aim gives concentration, vigor, direct- 
ness; diversity of aim gives vacillation, uncertainty, feebleness in 
action. It is a finishing school and a fitting school. In the former 
capacity it must render an account to that portion of the com- 
munity that calls for finishing courses that have some immediate 
relation to the affairs of every day life ; in the latter capacity it must 
meet the requirements of college admission in numerous courses. 

The greater the extent to which the principle of election is in- 
troduced into the college courses and into the high school courses, 
the harder the problem of the secondary school, — harder by reason 
of the increased number of teachers required and the reduction of 
numbers in many cases below the point at which class spirit and 
enthusiasm arise. The increase in the number of teachers made 
necessary by the large number of courses, and electives within 
courses, tends to lower salaries, and consequently to lower the grade 
of instruction. This disintegrating effect is, of course, not so notice- 
able in the large high schools situated in wealthy communities 
as it is in the small high schools and in schools having limited 
financial support. But whatever the difficulties in the way, the free 
high school must continue to perform in greater or less degree the 
two functions to which I have referred. Were it no longer to 
try to fit for college we should have a fatal break in our educational 
system in all States in which State Universities have been estab- 
lished ; were it to cease to try to fit for life it would scarcely be able 
to justify its existence or to secure the means of support. While his- 
torically speaking, the high school is a fitting school, in modern 
times it is becoming in conscious purpose less and less a fitting 
school and more and more a finishing school. College authorities 
are coming to see and to recognize this fact, and the wisest leaders 
are ready to admit that a pupil who has completed any high school 
course that is general or disciplinary in its character and administered 
in a vigorous manner should be accepted as fitted for a correspond- 
ing course in college. It would be regarded as absurd today for a 
higher institution of learning, supported by the people, to insist upon 
Greek as a prerequisite for admission. Less absurd, perhaps, it is, 
but still indefensible for such an institution to demand a foreign 
language for admission. This is in nowise an indication that I do 
not value foreign language study in the high school. I do value 
it to the extent that I should like to see every pupil in such schools 



56 



engaged for the greater portion of the four-year period in the study 
of at least one foreign language. 

It is the function of the high school to fit for college, but it is 
not the function of the college to assume a dictatorial attitude as to 
what this preparation shall be. The college, or university, as it is 
commonly called, is in a position to aid materially in the solution 
of the problem of suitable courses for secondary schools, provided 
it will duly eliminate the personal equation, and consider not what is 
best for the university, but what is best for the youth of the com- 
monwealth. There are those who cut the Gordian knot at this 
point by saying that there should be no difference in the training 
of those who are to go to college and those who are to quit school 
at the close of the secondary course, I take notice that such per- 
sons are college presidents, and that the training they think best 
for all is the training that best fits for the college they represent. 
Mark that I do not charge such persons with insincerity. They see 
things through college spectacles and cannot help it. 

It is probably true that all disciplinary studies should be pursued 
in essentially the same way, no matter what the student is to do after 
leaving the high school. But even here I take it that the student 
who is to leave school may well afford, in a given subject, to omit 
some of the technicalities that the college preparatory student should 
master. This would enable him to secure a larger acquaintance with 
the subject as a whole. But aside from such courses as are chiefly 
for disciplinary purpose the differences are much more marked. 

When we come to consider the secondary school in the capacity 
of a fitting school, we immediately become aware of further diversity 
of aims. Training for vocation, training for citizenship and the 
general culture of the pupil, all are phases of the question that 
claim our attention. 

The function of the high school in training for vocation may 
easily degenerate into the teaching of trades, or occupations. To fit 
graduates to go immediately into gainful occupations is usually to 
produce an over-supply of half-baked applicants for low grade posi- 
tions at nominal salaries; but worse still is the effect upon the 
spirit and ideals of the immature students who attend an institution 
in which the utilitarian conception prevails. The narrowing effects 
of preparation for college as the leading idea of the school is almost 
as much to be deplored as rank vocationalism. The best preparation 
and equipment for vocation that it is possible for the youth of high 
school age to possess, are good health, moral habits, alertness and 

57 



initiative, integrity, high ideals, a trained mind, and a skillful hand. 
All these elements of success in business or vocation are zealously 
and successfully fostered in every good high school during the four 
years of the distinctively formative period of life. Crude, shape- 
less, human material enters the school, and at the end of the four 
years the youth have been born anew into the spiritual life of the 
race, and come forth glad and eager to co-operate with their fellow- 
men, and to pursue with vigor some useful occupation that will 
yield a permanent livelihood. 

Every pupil in the high school, regardless of his occupation, must 
be a citizen, and the high and responsible duty of training for citizen- 
ship is one the school cannot shirk, even were it so disposed. The 
four things that are most essential to the best citizenship are in- 
telligence, honesty, virtue and self-support. To attain the end sought 
in respect to citizenship the instruction should be strong on the 
side of history, civics, and the elements of sociology; of equal im- 
portance is language, the art of expression, and literature which 
contains the wisest thoughts of the wisest men expressed in the 
choicest forms of literary art. In mathematical and physical sciences 
the mind is taught to seek and to value exactness, and to rely upon 
proof rather than assertion. In the phraseology of Bacon, the mind 
in such studies learns to "bottom" upon that which is fundamental. 
Plato, in a well-known passage in the "Republic," describes elab- 
orately the cultured man in this manner : "A lover, not of a part 
of wisdom, but of the whole; who has a taste for every sort of 
knowledge, and is curious to learn, and is never satisfied; who has 
magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all ex- 
istence; who is harmoniously constituted; of a well-proportioned 
and gracious mind, whose own nature will move spontaneously 
towards the true being of everything; who has a good memory and 
is quick to learn, noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, 
temperance." Payne, in his Contributions to the Science of Educa- 
tion, summarizes Plato's statement in these words : "Comprehensive- 
ness and elevation of mind ; a quenchless zeal for knowledge ; grace 
and harmony in mental endowments; an ardent love of whatever 
is true, beautiful, and good; an educated will that moves spontane- 
ously towards the right." Then he adds that such an ideal as Plato 
has drawn is the ripened fruit of a whole lifetime of training, and 
that during the ordinary period of education, the process that leads 
to this final result can be hardly more than well begun. The college 
graduate does not usually show in a striking degree the character- 

58 



istic marks of culture such as Plato describes, much less the high 
school graduate. Nevertheless, the secondary school is the finishing 
school for thousands of bright, capable, and aspiring minds — minds 
that will go on developing not only in power but also in the direc- 
tion of the Greek ideal of culture, to the end of life. 

All subjects in the ordinary curriculum contribute, if properly 
taught, to the culture end of education. That some are richer in 
culture material and methods than others goes without saying. The 
achievements of the human race in literature, philosophy, science, 
government, invention — in all that pertains to its material and spir- 
itual advancement, constitute the subject matter of culture. The 
manner and spirit in which this material is approached and ap- 
propriated determine the character of the result. True culture be- 
gins in the people's college, and in a rightly balanced and properly 
administered course considerable progress is made and impetus 
gained, so that college life, or life in society, as the case may be, 
gives the environment and the stimulus for the continuation of the 
leavening process. 

To summarize briefly, the high school should fit for college, or 
more properly speaking, the college should accept without question 
the graduate who has finished in a thorough-going way any course 
of study that has emphasized strongly for four years the studies 
that make for culture and discipline. The effort of the high school 
to prepare students for the State University is laudable and neces- 
sary, and in the early efforts of a given school to bring up its work 
to a high plane the stimulus of the university upon the school and 
upon the community is very valuable. But the time comes when 
the effort to fit all students for college, when only one in ten of the 
graduates ever go to college, is a serious handicap to the kind of 
work the secondary school ought to do for the mass of students. 
Aside from preparation for college, the function of the high school 
is to prepare its graduates for life, and this means a generous founda- 
tion for vocation, training for citizenship, and such beginnings of 
culture as four years of study upon such material in the formative 
period of life under mature and large-minded teachers can bring 
about. The hopeful thing about it all is, as it seems to me, that 
in the near future all these objects can be accomplished in the 
best way at the same time, provided the college and university will 
lend aid and sympathy rather than to stand aloof and make demands. 
In connection with the idea of preparation for life, I should like to 
discuss, if the time permitted, the factor of the teacher's discovery 

59 



and stimulation of latent talents in the pupils. The students in the 
public high schools come largely from the homes of the poor and 
those in moderate circumstances. Here are great mines of wealth 
to be found by teachers who carry the touchstone for its discovery. 
The; Chairman: 

Charles DeGarmo, Professor of Education, Cornell University, 
will be the next speaker. 

Prof. DeGarmo: 

I have chosen for my part of the discussion this afternoon but a 
single point. In topics III. and IV. of the preliminary call for 
this meeting it was suggested that possibly the high school ought 
to be an independent institution isolated from higher institutions 
to the extent at least that it pursued its own ends and purposes as 
it chose. What is the relation, therefore, of the high school to the 
university? Will you think for a moment whether you would like 
to have your high schools isolated from your grammar schools? 
Would you like to have the grammar school set apart because the 
majority of its students do not go into the high school? Would 
you say that it therefore should become a high school, an end and 
aim in itself? I fancy no high school man would accede to that 
doctrine. If you want to see how it works in a foreign country 
you have an example of it in Germany. The elementary schools 
there furnish an illustration of that kind, having their own end and 
purpose, isolated from the Gymnasia. The result is that all the 
children who go into the public schools in Germany are practically 
debarred from ever going any further than the grammar schools. 
I cannot think of education in that way. I cannot think of it except 
as one thing, and if there is any one feature of American educa- 
tion which excites my admiration more than another, it is the fact 
that a child in any social circle may begin at the beginning and 
may go clear through without let or hindrance. I think perhaps we 
can get some light upon this topic by seeing what are the natural 
bonds uniting the university and the secondary schools. In the 
first place all our teachers come from the college and the university. 
We may not like that; we may say they are not good educators, 
that they haven't good ideals of education, but such as they are we 
have to take them. For instance, to see the effect that the necessity 
of taking these teachers is having, let us ask why the study of 
Latin has doubled proportionately in the last ten years. Some think 
that it is a renewed interest of the public in the indispensable 

60 



character of Latin as a preparation for American citizenship. 
Others think that the American high school has called for cheap 
teachers, and that it has been obliged to take the girls — Blessings 
on them — and the girls, you know, like languages and excel in 
them. As a rule they detest mathematics and science and do not 
excel in them. They go into the public high schools and offer their 
services. They are asked what they can do best, and the answer is 
"Languages." You may take your choice, of course, as to these 
two explanations and accept which seems to you more true. We 
have to get our teachers from the colleges and universities. We 
want to make the mother tongue amount to something in the educa- 
tion of the people. We are working in common with other nations, 
such as Germany, for instance, where the German Emperor says, 
in his speech, "I want young Germans, not young Greeks and 
Latins," and so Germany is trying to utilize her mother tongue as 
an instrument in instruction. So are we, but we are making queer 
work of it. Our Professor Hart says, "What under heavens are 
the public schools for! Their students can neither write nor talk 
the English language." And yet it is the college teacher that must 
teach these things. There is a natural bond of unity in the teaching 
force which we cannot ignore, and even if we tried to ignore it we 
could not counteract its influence. It is there and there to stay. 

A second bond of union between the two is the fact that the 
college and university have furnished us and are furnishing us our 
ideals of what scholarship is. We complain ofttimes that they will 
not accept our English and our science and our manual training and 
our commercial courses, that they will have nothing but languages 
and mathematics. Now, will you tell me why? Is it because those 
men have blinded themselves to what is going on in the world, to 
what the world demands and needs ? I think not. I think they are 
very much awake to what is going on in the world, but they do 
insist upon a mental training which goes over the subject matter 
thoroughly, that is well taught and long continued. They see that 
they can get more easily what they want out of languages and 
mathematics than they can out of anything else, and so I interpret 
the conservatism of many colleges and universities to mean, "Gentle- 
men, you must send us well trained minds. We will not have any 
other." Shall we demur? Shall we say that is a wrong idea, that 
they are ignoring the development of the American people when 
they will not accept flabby scholarship? You know Emerson hated 
a man who was morally a "mush" of concession, and so the college 

61 



man hates a student who is a "mush" of sentiment and inexact 
knowledge. 

In the next place the college is furnishing our standards for 
the new subjects. Indeed, it is furnishing the possibility for the 
development of the high school into new life. For an illustration, 
all over this country, and especially in New York State, they are 
establishing commercial courses in all of the high schools. What 
are the students getting? A little smattering of geography, a smat- 
tering of bookkeeping, a little typewriting and stenography. Just 
glimmerings of business technique. Now, shall the college accept 
that kind of material, that sort of preparation ? To what end ? What 
can the college do with students of that sort? But there is a great 
future for the American high school in the development of these 
commercial branches. The first two books — thoroughly equipped 
and worked out — upon commercial geography have just appeared 
from the press, and they are but the harbinger of a host to come. 
And who are making these books? University professors. Those 
who know commierce and who know geography. The Wharton 
School down in Pennsylvania is furnishing new books upon modern 
subjects. Emery R. Johnson's book upon transportation is a book 
that would excite any student to do his best. Another man has 
written a book for high school students upon the finance of the 
business world. It contains facsimiles of every kind of business 
paper and every kind of money that is used in the commercial world, 
and shows their methods of doing business. That book has just 
appeared. The Universities in Philadelphia and in Madison and in 
New York are beginning to develop these commercial courses in 
their higher aspects, and they are giving us the material which we 
must take, the books in which we can find this material, and the 
ideals for making it useful. Can we not afford to wait? Why 
should we be in haste to cut ourselves loose from the university, 
as some are, just because of the American majority. Majorities 
do not count. Education is not to be thought of as an aggregation 
of different schools, but as an organization of schools. In our ele- 
mentary education we have tried reform by addition — putting in 
new courses. We have tried reform by subtraction — taking them 
out again. But we shall never reform our elementary education 
until we can reform it by organization, and what is true of the 
elementary school is true of the high school — the secondary as well 
as the others. A few years ago the University of Illinois had only 
five hundred students ; today they have nearly four thousand. Where 

62 



have they come from ? From your high schools. Twelve years ago 
there were but a handful of graded high schools in the State of 
Illinois, and now you can find one in every town capable of sup- 
porting it. What has made that increase? Do you deplore that 
kind of development? Have you lost heretofore by being in close 
touch with the university? I think not. I think there is no possi- 
bility of your losing in the future. I do believe — yea, I may say 
that I almost know, that the public high school might quadruple 
its attendance and its usefulness if the people would furnish the 
money so that the schools could develop as they ought to develop 
in accordance with the needs of the great surging American life 
about us on every hand. I deplore any check to that development, 
unless it is a healthful one. What is your idea of a college professor ? 
Is it that of the man who holds the Qgg while he boils his watch? 
Well, maybe you have some of them here. They are getting very 
scarce in our part of the country. We send our professors to China 
to reform their financial system. Think you that men like Professor 
Jenks would not be good judges of what should be accepted in the 
university in the lines of political and economic sciences? No man 
is a better judge. He is not one of those old fossils. You cannot 
find them in this country. They are departed spirits ; gone never to 
return. But the new man, the alert man, the business man, the 
man who sees the community as it is, who reads the papers, who 
addresses the people — he is the man who has taken his place, and 
I have no fear whatever that the secondary schools of this country 
will ever suffer from the closest possible affiliation with the uni- 
versities. 

The Chairman : 

John E. Boodin, Professor of Philosophy in Iowa College, Grin- 
nell, Iowa, is the next speaker. 

Professor Boodin: 

THE FUNCTION OF THE HIGH SCHOOL. 

If we look at the function of the high school from the historical 
point of view, we find that its primary function was to prepare for 
college. This was at the root of the New England town grammar 
school. This too remained the generally accepted function of the 
high school until comparatively recent times. 

Within our own generation there has been a marked reaction 
in this respect. The elective system in the high school, as well as 

63 



in the college, has substituted the superior wisdom of the pupil him- 
self for the wisdom of his ancestors under the older system. Various 
efforts have been made to make the high school course "practical." 
Under cover of this word "practical" various popular fads and 
various technical studies have found their way into the high school 
curriculum. If the old ideal of the high school was narrow and 
dogmatic, the modern ideal has resolved itself into little more than 
caprice on the part of young students, experimenting superintend- 
ents, and ignorant school boards. Neither the old system nor the 
new furnishes us with a thought-out ideal of education, though both 
tendencies contain a certain amount of truth. 

The problem as it thrusts itself upon us at the present time may 
be stated, perhaps, in this question: Is the high school an end in 
itself, or is it merely a means toward preparation for college ? This 
marks at once the contrast between the new ideal and the old. 

In several of the European countries an attempt has been made to 
meet this problem by establishing separate schools for those that 
intend to prepare for the university and those who simply aim at 
a general education. Thus we have the various forms of elementary 
schools, which finally lead to the university and the Volk Schule. 
This makes a distinction between the elect and the common herd, 
and is merely a remnant of the old caste system. The determina- 
tion as to whether a boy is going on to the university or not must 
be left practically entirely with the boy's parents. To change later 
on involves serious inconvenience and loss of time. It is a serious 
question, moreover, whether any part of a man's life can be looked 
upon as a mere means to some future end. An ideal of education 
ought to be broad enough to include all human beings at that par- 
ticular stage of development, irrespective of mere economic and 
social position. 

Here the advocate of the modern elective system in the high 
school rushes forward and tells us: "I have found just the proper 
remedy. The whole fault lies with these iron-clad entrance require- 
ments. If the college will only adapt itself to us and take anything 
that we may pursue in a respectable way for four years, we shall 
have that complete democracy, which you desire." As a matter 
of fact, many of the Western colleges, and practically all of the State 
colleges, have made their entrance requirements "broad" enough to 
amount to this, and thus we have caprice run wild. 

The real difficulty, therefore, is far larger than the high school. 
It is the difficulty that so far we have no unified ideal of education. 

64 



In such an ideal there could be no question of the function of the 
high school. Each step in education should give that which is 
most appropriate to the development of the powers of the soul, and 
thus make possible the greatest further development, whether in or 
out of school. Each step thus becomes in turn both end and means. 
It is end in so far as it makes life significant now to the greatest ex- 
tent and in the peculiar way that this stage of life can have signifi- 
cance. It is means in so far as it puts the individual in the proper 
direction for still further expansion and growth. Until we have 
educators broad enough to see not only their own corner of the field, 
but the whole process of education, and who are large-minded and 
Christian enough to be interested in the whole for its own sake, 
irrespective of the particular corner of the field in which they happen 
to be working, we cannot hope for much improvement. While those 
who have charge of the secondary schools are only too anxious to 
cater to the whims of ignorant school boards, in what they term "prac- 
tical," and the leaders in collegiate education are running over each 
other and making any sort of compromises in order to swell the 
numbers of the freshman class, substituting bigness for meaning, as 
they have been doing in the West of late, the situation is discourag- 
ing, if not disheartening. 

It would seem from past indications that little hope can be 
placed on the State institutions in guiding present day tendencies or 
working out new ideals. The State colleges, like newspapers, are 
apt to indicate or register tendencies rather than guide them. They 
respond only too readily to popular demands. Of course, this may 
be changed by strong individual leaders, and especially by partial 
endowment. It is on the endowed institutions, however, that we 
must primarily build in the setting and keeping up of standards. 

Of the tendencies that have so far been at work in the high 
school we may say that the least dangerous tendency has been making 
it subservient to the college, as, after all, in so far as there have 
been educational ideals in the past, they have been considered pri- 
marily with reference to the college. The narrowest and most dan- 
gerous tendency has been the technical tendency, which has diverted 
the mind even for the time being from, the meaning of education 
and put it in a false attitude for self development. It has emphasized 
the mere greed of getting, without showing the deeper need of being 
something. The high school at any rate should be a school of liberal 
education and technical schools should be kept distinct. — What then 
is a liberal education? 

65 



If education must have for its object at any time the greatest 
possible adjustment to our environment, psychological and physical, 
past and present; if the purpose of education, in other words, is to 
make us feel at home in our world, there ought in the end to be 
no real conflict between preparation for college and the ideal of the 
high school. In fact, if we seriously consider what is involved in 
being at home in the world, we shall find, I think, that the entrance 
requirements to the best colleges, modeled on the New England 
type, furnish the best backbone of a high school education. 

Adjustment to our environment must mean the proper under- 
standing and use of the tool by means of which we communicate 
with other human beings, the most important part of our environ- 
ment. The study of language, its structure and rules, is generally 
agreed to be a necessary part of education. Now I maintain that 
the most economic, and in fact the only way to get an understand- 
ing of the grammar of the English language, is through a language 
that has inflections. Latin or Greek grammar is an essential intro- 
duction to modern grammar, and Latin is legislative in this regard 
for other languages. The time spent in the so-called study of gram- 
mar is largely wasted, and the text-books that are generally used 
are false and abominable. He that knows no language but English, 
knows no grammar, may be fairly laid down as an axiom. The 
method, used in some of the European elementary schools, to start 
the serious study of grammar with Latin is thoroughly pedagogical, 
even if it is traditional. The notion that grammar and arithmetic, 
the two abstractest studies in the whole catalogue of education are 
especially adapted to the juvenile mind, and should be "finished" 
before the high school stage, is one of the greatest intellectual atroci- 
ties ever perpetrated. As a result the American student has no 
chance to learn grammar. But this simply shows that our educa- 
tional system gets more rotten the lower down one goes. 

It may be further laid down as an axiom that an education should 
give some time perspective. We can only understand the present 
through the past. All high schools, however poor, do some work 
in history. They all ought to do some work in ancient history, as 
that is the past we are least apt to understand. Now how can we 
understand the ancient peoples ? If it is worth while to study ancient 
history, it is worth while to know something about it. And to know 
something about it, we must get their point of view. Ancient his- 
tory is life, not mere dates. To get the sense of reality of ancient 
history you can do no better than read some ancient literature in 

66 



some ancient language. Csesar's account of his own campaigns, 
Cicero's exposition of the problems of life and death as they existed 
then, Virgil's account of their ideals — this takes you out of the 
present and puts you at the ancient point of view, as no reading 
about them can do. Those people back there were not really Amer- 
icans some years ago, but vastly different with a great deal still 
in common with us as regards real human life. You furnish thus 
the imagination with the necessary material to construct a past world, 
and at least one ancient language is indispensable for this. 

But it will also be granted that we should be adjusted to the 
problems of the present, feel at home in our present thought-world. 

That we should learn to appreciate something of the best in our 
own literature need not be discussed. It must also be owned that we 
are more capable of doing this, if we know something of some other 
literature, just as the man who travels can appreciate better sunsets 
at home. 

The study of some foreign literature of a contemporary nation 
is a good way of traveling, better than rushing over Europe in a 
summer. It is far easier to imagine European cities and moun- 
tains than it is to appreciate their inner life. The study of a for- 
eign literature gives us the material for imagining what other 
nations, who are unfortunate enough not to be English speaking, are 
like. They are really not so barbarous as one might expect. In 
this mixing ground of races, too, besides being of practical ad- 
vantage in a narrow sense perhaps, it enables the native born to be 
sympathetic with the foreigner in acquiring English and forbearing 
with his accent, and that is worth a good deal. 

In this scientific age it seems desirable that a student even in 
high school should get something of the scientific spirit. He should 
do a year's serious work in at least one science. Perhaps get a 
smattering of one or two others. This will give him the basis for 
further reading and self-culture along those lines, even if he does 
not go on to college. The high school, however, is hardly the place 
for specializing in science. 

The value of the training furnished by such mathematical 
studies as algebra and geometry is so generally recognized that it is 
not necessary to urge them. There are no superior disciplines in 
training the logical powers, though I would rank with these the 
training gotten in working out a difficult sentence in Greek or Latin. 
They are both, and especially geometry, more adapted to that period 
of life than the obstruse portions of arithmetic, which should be 

67 



elective. Hence students very generally get enthusiastic about these 
studies. 

I have given the entrance requirements as in operation at Iowa 
College after years of thoughtful work. Of course, these do not fill 
the four years of a good high school, and it is possible to introduce 
some of the mechanical and modern accomplishments like book- 
keeping and elocution and — athletics to fill out. But it seems to me 
that our ancestors builded v/iser than they knew, that the old course 
of the New England grammar school, as thus modernized, complies 
on the whole with the rational ideal of education, and furnishes at 
least a working basis, whereas the elective system is the mere absence 
of an ideal, frivolity run mad. I challenge you at least to furnish 
a better ideal and a better backbone of studies. 

The Chairman : 

Frederick E. Bolton, Professor of Education, State University 
of Iowa, will be the next speaker. 

Professor Bolton : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : An American at one time asked a China- 
man why the Chinese always built pagodas fourteen stories high. 
The Chinaman answered in his characteristic way, "That is the way 
to build a pagoda." So the public idea of what the high school 
should be is very largely determined by tradition and what the high 
school has been and is. 

Without doubt this new century will witness many farreaching 
changes in school and college organization. Evolution did not cease 
with the crayfish ; it is going on all about us at a rate never before 
approximated. The greatest changes that can ever occur are in our 
social institutions. The whole system is in a process of evolution, 
and we must not expect it to remain stationary ; to stand still means 
to retrograde. The free public high school is so new that its values 
are as yet wholly unappreciated and its possibilities unimagined. 
The first free public high school was organized in Boston in 1821, 
and it was modeled upon the lines laid down by the "grammar 
schools" and the academies. In the process of evolution the school 
has moved forward so that it now not only occupies the position 
which the earlier high schools did, but it has also added new func- 
tions. It now practically includes what the college once did. It 
is familiarly called the people's college, and it has come to be a 
real college without being noticed. Pupils graduating from the 
best high schools at the present time receive a far better training 

68 



than students formerly did in the colleges. These facts we must 
thoroughly recognize. 

The high school, as I see it, should subserve several different 
specific functions, a few of which will be mentioned. In the first 
place, the high school covers a period of peculiar development in 
the life of the individual. This fact renders a differentiation from 
the elementary schools and from the higher schools absolutely neces- 
sary. It necessitates different methods of teaching, different 
methods of study and different methods of moral discipline. It 
covers the period of youth rather than that of childhood or of adult 
years. To continue the child too long in the elementary school 
environment and under elementary school methods of teaching and 
discipline is an injustice to the child. Hence as nearly as possible 
with the advent of the period of youth, the child should be trans- 
ferred to a new school environment. The transfer should be gradual 
and does not necessitate an absolute transfer to a different building. 
Again, with the close of the period of youth, when the youth has 
arrived at an age of discretion and maturer judgment, he should 
then be transferred to the college or university atmosphere. Such 
a conception demands that the specific high school work should be 
begun from one to two years earlier than it ordinarily is begun, 
also in a large number of cases the secondary school regime should 
be continued for a year or two longer than in our present high 
schools ; that is, the high school should occupy the years between 
about twelve and twenty. This is not by any means a wholly imag- 
inative organization. In our best schools we already have the high 
school reaching down into the grammar school through the introduc- 
tion of high school subjects a year or two earlier, and many of the 
large city high schools are continuing post-graduate studies and by 
this means are duplicating one or two years of college work. None 
of the schools which have entered upon this work has ever taken 
a backward step. It has been found to meet a decided need. From 
an extended investigation which I pursued a year ago, I am con- 
vinced that the best secondary school men in the country are wholly 
in sympathy with the extension of the high school work in the 
larger schools. 

Because of the needs of the adolescent and because of the variety 
of demands made upon the high school in being a people's college, 
the work offered must embrace a great variety of subjects, and the 
courses be flexible in character. The adolescent is groping to find 
his place in the world, and the high school must discover his in- 

69 



terests and aptitudes, foster them, and create new interests. To 
offer a single inflexible course is sure to produce starvation for 
some, nausea and indigestion for others, and to drive still others 
to the tables of the business colleges, to the business industries or, 
what is more unfortunate, to the poisons of the street. All the people 
are taxed and there should be no taxation without representation 
here. The adolescent should have spread out before him the whole 
vista of possibilities. Through minute and prolonged attention to 
some subject or group of subjects he should learn the meaning of 
mastery, but in many of the introductory courses he should not be 
harried with hair-splitting definitions nor with exhaustive details, 
and the examinations should be sunk into the background. Point 
of view, inspiration, interest, and a glimpse of the place and possi- 
bilities of the subject should characterize the first year in most high 
school subjects. This does not mean that hazy ideas or ill-defined 
concepts are desirable, but it does emphatically declare against too 
much drill in the detailed forms and formulae. It is a period of 
survey of the territory previous to laying permanent roadways. 

The high school should not be considered as a place where a 
certain amount of formal discipline is doled out, supposedly prepar- 
ing the pupil for any and every sort of mental fray. Power is 
special and not general. No subject has a monopoly of educative 
values. All are valuable, provided they enlist enthusiastic effort 
and stimulate permanent life interests. 

The high school must teach pupils to think ; that is, to weigh, to 
compare, to form independent conclusions from data under con- 
sideration. While uncritical receptiveness characterizes childhood's 
learning, the youth is ready to challenge, and investigate. This 
should be encouraged. Too often the school makes an echoist of 
him because of its juvenile methods. It gives him nothing that pre- 
empts his mind, but it "busies" him with parrot recitations of 
definitions and formulae. To teach him to think he must have some- 
thing to think about. That is, something in which he, as an in- 
dividual, is interested. What subjects interest ordinary boys and 
girls? What subjects occupy their thoughts when not actually re- 
quired to prepare lessons ? It seems to me that there can be but one 
answer. Those which deal with things and human activities. What 
subjects deal with these? Plainly literature, history, economics, 
sociology, science. The Sunday's Record-Herald a few weeks ago 
showed upon investigation that in almost every public library boys 
were seeking books on electricity. (It would be interesting to see 

70 



how many seek Caesar, or Xenophon in the original.) Great stacks 
of history and Hterature find their way without compulsion into the 
boys' and girls' hands. 

The boys and girls in the high schools are just ready to grapple 
with many of these important problems which occupy the theater 
of action about them. Listen to their debates. What do they 
choose for topics? How, I ask, shall we fit them to form intelligent 
opinions about strikes, tariff, Cuban reciprocity, Philippine inde- 
pendence, the city taxes, St. Louis boodlers, government ownership, 
etc. ? Kaiser Wilhelm said they must train up young Germans ; not 
young Romans. Similarly we must train up young Americans, not 
young Greeks or Romans. Very significant is the dropping of com- 
pulsory Greek in the German gymnasia and the substitution of 
optional English. It is a measure designed to enable the young Ger- 
man to better adjust himself to his environment. Latin and Greek 
have also been omitted from entrance requirements to London Uni- 
versity. 

Our boys and girls of today are to be in the midst of the world's 
affairs tomorrow, and still in view of this there are those who would 
designedly shut them off from the world, busy them too exclusively 
with expressions of thought absolutely remote from present day 
interests, make them learn mathematical formulae, which the ma- 
jority will never use directly or indirectly. All in the hope, well 
meant, that they will thus learn to think. The only way to learn 
to think is to have something to think about. If we merely wished 
to give something hard, why not give them Russian or chess ? 

The high school must be adapted to the needs of the people at 
the present time. These needs are far in advance of what they 
were when high schools were first organized. Then about the only 
function of the high school was to fit for college, whose function 
in turn was to train young men for the ministry, law, medicine — in 
short, for the professions. At the present time the high school 
should continue' to be a fitting school for the professions, but in addi- 
tion it has a range undreamed of a hundred years ago. It must be 
in reality a fitting school, but not alone a fitting school for college 
and the professions. It must fit all the youth of the community 
for the varied interests of the social life which they represent. The 
variety of occupations which the youth may enter at the present 
time is indefinitely greater than in Washington's time. The cur- 
riculum of the high schools must widen accordingly. Its courses 
should represent the occupations and interests of the community life 

71 



of which it is a part. The pupils come from homes representing a 
great variety of industrial, commercial, and social activities, and 
it is but fair to presume the activities of the children are destined 
to be fully as widely distributed. The high school must take 
cognizance of this fact and adapt itself to the conditions. A small 
per cent, will enter the professions. Most high schools are tradi- 
tionally ministering to this need. But how about the pupil who is 
to be a stone mason, a carpenter, an insurance solicitor, a banker, a 
bookkeeper, a machinist, a musician, an artist, a sculptor, a farmer, 
a housewife, a printer? Are there any points of contact between 
the school and the chosen interest? Are their chosen occupations 
any more vocational or utilitarian than those of the lawyer, the 
doctor, the preacher ? Surely it is not a college for the people that 
provides for the one class and leaves the other classes to shift for 
themselves. 

The high school should draw a larger percentage of the pupils 
in a community, and it must hold a larger number than it does. 
It is entirely uneconomical for the family or for the state to allow 
pupils to leave the schools before the age of eighteen or nineteen. 
Not fifty per cent, of those who do leave school before that time would 
be obliged to by their parents or by real necessity. Most of them 
leave because they do not like to attend. They cannot secure in- 
struction in the subjects they desire, or the methods repel. The 
vigor of the business colleges is indicative of a lack in the public 
high schools. The youth resort to the business colleges to get what 
they have a right to expect, but cannot get, in the high school. Busi- 
ness or commercial courses are popular wherever offered in the high 
schools. Encouragement and advice should always attempt to cause 
the pupil to take other subjects at the same time and to complete 
a full course. But even though the others are not taken, the busi- 
ness branches should be allowed. Often a single subject taken will 
enlist for the entire course. 

The high school should ever stand as an institution maintained 
primarily for the development of liberal scholarship in a com- 
munity, but it must not fail to offer opportunities to all who can 
profit by advanced instruction, whatever may be the subject desired. 

In the larger cities the evening high school must come to be a 
permanent feature. Its value to a city community is inestimable, as 
has amply been proven in scores of large cities. It reaches a class 
of persons, men and women, who have neglected opportunities and 



72 



now realize the fact, but whose time during the day is required for 
getting- a hvelihood. 

The high school must be a guardian and promoter of physical 
health. This will demand a careful adjustment of the amount of 
physical and mental work which each individual pupil can best 
undertake. All must be helped to find and induced to take'proper 
recreation, and sufficient training of the voluntary muscles to secure 
ease, economy and grace in bodily movements. The high schools 
are at present leagues away from this goal. Athletic training is 
usually provided only for the few who do not need it, and is too 
frequently on the horse-race plan, whereby a few are overtrained 
for the amusement of the sports. Physical culture must be pro- 
vided for all. Gymnasiums must be equipped and, still better, acres 
of ground must be secured in connection with every high school, 
where all will have opportunity to indulge in the games suited to 
individual needs and inclinations. 

Physiological instruction should also contribute to health. To 
merely catalogue the bones does not do this. It must be practically 
studied in connection with physical culture, the noon lunch, hours 
of sleep, periods of study and work, ventilation, lighting and heating 
of the building, the formation of habits, public sanitation, etc. 

Of course it is impossible that the smaller high schools offer 
as extended curricula as I have suggested ; such programs can and 
should be carried out in all cities of eight or ten thousand popula- 
tion. The smaller schools should do well what they attempt and 
then pass their pupils on to the high school in the nearest large 
town. The tuition of the pupils who thus go away should be paid 
by the community sending them. Again, the State should extend 
a certain amount of aid to high schools of a given standard. The 
principle of graduated State support of education is well established 
in several States ; Wisconsin, for example, has what is known as 
the free high school system. Each free high school maintaining 
standard courses of study and equipment receives a certain sum from 
the State. At the present time $100,000 are annually expended for 
this purpose. On the same principle, the State in 1899 voted $100,- 
000 in support of standard graded schools, and placed two inspectors 
in the field. Minnesota also grants certain sums to the high schools 
according to the standards maintained. Florida grants $360 an- 
nually to each high school of a given standard. Here are examples 
of graduated State aid. 

The State, through its high schools, should provide culture and 

73 



training for all of its youth. We must break down the false notion 
of the absolute difference between that which is of utility and that 
which affords culture. In an ideal education they will be identical. 
Any study is cultural and highly educative which gives power, 
(knowledge) puts one in touch with and in sympathy with civiliza- 
tion; makes one open-minded, gives one breadth of interests, makes 
one interesting and likeable, refined, and useful to society. True 
culture means developed intellect and refined feelings; deals with 
morality as well as with things intellectual. President Draper says 
that one may obtain culture from Latin and Greek, also from build- 
ing bridges. Those subjects then, it would seem to me, afford most 
culture which come nearest to life's interests. It is the business of 
the school to help the pupil find these interests. No study in the 
course has a right to a place for its formal discipline alone. Who 
would crack nuts for the exercise in cracking them? The facts 
themselves should be of sufficient value to justify their contempla- 
tion. The old doctrine of educational gymnastics must give way 
to the new one of nurture. The mind grows by what it feeds on, 
as well as through exercise. 

All development in nature has come about because exercise in a 
given direction has produced development in that direction. Hence 
if we would develop the pupil physically he must have physical ex- 
ercise and food; if he is to be developed mentally he must have 
mental food and exercise ; if he is to be developed morally he must 
have moral nutrition, i. e., knowledge of things moral, and be ex- 
ercised in the performance of moral acts. If the pupil's social 
nature is to be developed, there is but one way, and that is by plac- 
ing him in a social environment. The one who pores over his gram- 
mar and his mathematics, and excludes himself from society will 
grow up anti-social. Now, all school life, from the kindergarten 
through the university, should have for one purpose the discovery 
of aptitudes and interests, and the developing of the same. These 
interests should be many sided. Since growth is special, breadth 
of interests, largeness of view, and judicial mindedness can only 
come by touching life at many points. Poring over one's grammar, 
valuable as it may be, will not develop one's views of men and events. 
These can only be gained by nourishment gained from knowledge 
along these lines. Mathematics, for example, teaches many rules, 
but not the Golden Rule ; that can only be learned by mingling with 
one's fellows. The college student who becomes a recluse starves 
his nature in some of the most important directions. He becomes 

74 



narrow and contracted and unable to sympathize with society. 
Equally undesirable is it for the student who spends all his time in 
society of the present and never knows the great truths which 
books may reveal to him. 

I plead for the cultivation of breadth of interests, and the con- 
necting of formal school work with life's interests. "But," says 
someone, "many interests are utilitarian." Granted, but utilitarian 
does not necessarily mean mercenary. By utilitarian I mean that 
which can be utilized in connection with life's pursuits and interests. 
Sir William Hamilton says a utilitarian is, "Simply one who prefers 
the useful to the useless; and who does not?" Utilitarian does not 
necessarily mean mercenary. The poet studies the flowers, the 
changing tints of the rainbow, the birds of the air, the hills and 
vales, and then bursts forth into song utilizing the stores of images 
he had gathered. 

The engineer, the architect, the inventor, the railway superin- 
tendent, the landscape artist, the busines promoter, all utilize stores 
of imagery in developing their various plans. Shall we not hold 
their works in as high esteem as those of the poet, the philosopher, 
the statesman or the classicist? A sanitary engineer purifies a city 
and makes possible the development of vigorous bodies, which in 
turn provide conditions for sound mental life. These together pro- 
mote cheerfulness and higher ideals. Is his not as high an order 
of service to humanity as that of one who writes verses, paints 
pictures, or echoes an unknown tongue or two? The one who de- 
signs a beautiful, commodious and hygienic structure certainly dis- 
plays as much mental power as one who teaches history, Latin or 
philosophy within it. His contribution to the elevation of society 
is also equally great. In developing architectural skill he has secured 
soul expansion not less than the classicist. To be sure they are of 
different types, but society progresses only with differentiation and 
specialization. 

The public high schools and colleges should ever remain true 
centers of liberal culture, but that does not mean that they should 
assume that only a certain few protected subjects are cultural. 
The liberality comes from the breadth of interests stimulated, the 
development of a scientific spirit and an openness of mind. The 
method which pervades is more indicative of liberality and culture 
than the program of studies. We may teach dead languages, but the 
teacher and the method need not be dead. On the other hand, biology 
may be taught after a method that stifles expansive spiritual growth. 

75 



Great abiding interests, breadth of view and richness of social 
service are marks of culture. Adherence to tradition, contracted 
vision and selfishness of action, marks of pedantry. Melville B. 
Anderson wrote : "The way to educate a man is to set him to work ; 
the way to get him to work is to interest him; the way to interest 
him is to vitalize his task by relating it to some form of reality." 

President Eliot said last July, in his address on "The new Defini- 
tion of a Cultivated Man," that a cultivated man should possess not 
all knowledge, but that "which will enable him, with his individual 
personal qualities, to deal best and sympathize best with nature and 
with other human beings." 

Finally, and of greatest importance as educative factors, are the 
personality and influence of the living men and women who are 
in the environment of the youth. We are too apt to regard educa- 
tion like a manufactory. So many units of Latin, mathematics, and 
history put into the hopper will give us back an educated being. 
But no matter how well proportioned the mixture may have been, 
unless the great truths and worthy ideals have been transformed 
into spiritual forces, all is unavailing. Civic ideals and moral vir- 
tues may have been rehearsed, but only when they have quickened 
dormant possibilities into abundant life have they been to any worthy 
degree educative. Now, great inspiring living teachers can do in- 
finitely more than the mere pursuit of a subject toward the determi- 
nation of what shall take root. Next, and perhaps not less im- 
portant, is the influence of companions. Someone has said with great 
truth "We send our boy to the schoolmaster to be educated, but the 
schoolboys educate him." They largely determine a youth's inter- 
ests, and almost entirely his actions. And, after all, actions count 
most. We will with all we have willed, and every act is the be- 
ginning of a habit that becomes a lifelong phantom tyrant. 

Hence, although every subject may contribute to will-power, the 
direction in which that power comes to be applied is absolutely de- 
termined by the great interests and passions which may happen to 
lay hold of the youth's life. So the course of study, the paper cur- 
riculum, which every new principal "revises" is a secondary matter. 
The all important thing is to have great souls which breathe out 
abundant life, inspiring and invigorating all with whom they come 
in contact. 

The; Chairman : 

A. F. Nightingale, County Superintendent of Schools, Cook 
County, Illinois, is the next speaker. 

76 



Superintendent Nightingale : 

Mr. Chairman : Somebody had to be placed last on this program, 
and on account of my good nature I was made the victim. The 
mental picture about me is that of a large pile of wheat, and I sup- 
pose it is expected that I shall simply lie down in the straw. It 
would certainly be a very soft bed. I note your weariness, but my 
paper is brief, and you may feel at perfect liberty to take a nap. 

This is a hackneyed subject. The best thought of the highest 
scholarship has for years been expended upon it. The daily press, 
in its untrammeled wisdom, has volunteered its advice. Essayists, 
paid by the column and the line, have enriched our magazine litera- 
ture with their erudite efforts ; educational journals of every sort, 
in every section, have essayed to settle it. Presidents of universities, 
professors in pedagogy, superintendents of schools, high school prin- 
cipals have in turn grappled with it; conventions, national. State 
county, city, round-tables, associations formed for this specific pur- 
pose, have entered into a voluble and voluminous discussion of it; 
therefore if overcome by the spirit of unconscious cerebration, or 
influenced by the natural law of assimilation, I shall say only what 
others have said, and be charged with that deadly parallel of plagia- 
rism, I am prepared to endure the contumely. 

One's education, experience, environments and present profes- 
sional occupation give much color to one's outlook in the considera- 
tion of this theme. If one could forget what manner of man he 
himself is, if he could eradicate from his mental methods, as he can- 
not, every vestige of self-interest, his view-point would often be 
changed, his reasoning be more convincing and his conclusions com- 
mand more respect. 

The answer to this question yesterday will not be the answer 
to-morrow and the position one takes to-day depends somewhat 
upon how much he may be influenced by tradition, or how much 
he may be inspired by prophecy. The free public high school has 
been peculiarly an evolution. It has passed the protoplasmic and 
amoebic condition, but it does not yet appear what it shall be. Its 
history has been a marvel of contradictions. It has sown dragon's 
teeth and the seed of manliest manhood. Scores, hundreds of boys 
and girls have abandoned an education, because the high school 
has furnished no digestible assimilative food for them; others have 
risen to eminence through its help and inspiration. 

It has been shamefully dictated to from above to its great injury; 
it has disregarded conditions existing below to its severe condemna- 

77 



tion; it has been coaxed, cajoled, derided, criticized, abused, com- 
mended, apotheosized, until, were I not measurably sure that all 
human institutions designed for good, were under the ultimate con- 
trol of the Infinite, I should despair of the high school ever being 
what it ought to be, the college of the people. 

For the very reason that it has not yet adjusted itself to the 
thought and hope and purpose of those who patronize and maintain 
it, and for other reasons less commendable, there have always been 
some, indeed many, especially the childless taxpayer of large means, 
and others who cannot conscientiously divorce the religious from 
the secular in education, who maintain that the whole scheme of free 
public education beyond that of the elementary school is unconsti- 
tutional, or at least inconsistent with the fundamental principle of 
popular education, which recognizes public schools, not as a matter 
of charity and good will, but as a necessity for the safety and security 
of the state. It may be an historical fact that this was the design of 
our forbears, but let us rejoice that we are wiser than they. Their 
conditions were primitive; their horizon narrowed, their duties 
simple, their ambitions few. Business was not so complicated as 
now; commercial relations with the world were not established; in- 
ventions were in their infancy; electricity had not been discovered, 
steam was not used for locomotion, nor the telegraph nor the tele- 
phone for communication; the continent had not been gridironed 
with railroads, mines had not been developed, the mountains had 
not been tunneled, nor the earth disemboweled ; the races of the world 
in their lowest conditions were not here to be agglutinized and civ- 
ilized and citizenized. 

The free public high school is as much a necessity to-day to meet 
the marvellously changed conditions of life, as was the little ungraded 
district school of a hundred years ago, and the free public college 
fifty years hence will be even more in demand than the high school 
is to-day. I shall therefore dismiss the argument that the high 
school is not intrenched in the hearts of the people and has not come 
of necessity in the growth and advancement and progress of the 
Nation's life, to stay, as unworthy of our consideration. 

What is the function of the free public high school? Let me 
tell you, out of my experience and observation and my knowledge 
of human life and human needs some things that it is not. The 
function of the free public high school is not to educate with severe 
exclusiveness the children of the aristocratic alone, or possibly the 
upper stratum of the great middle class, as defined by degrees of 

78 



wealth, such as the private school caters to, and must always cater 
to, so long as its passport is a large bank account, but it is to teach, 
and train, and develop, and citizenize the children of all classes, 
rich and poor, high and low, foreign and native, Celt, Teuton and 
Norseman, and make their hearts and homes fit dwelling-places for 
love of country and the spirit of good-will. 

Just so long as the separation of the rich and the poor, the aris- 
tocratic and the plebeian born is emphasized to benefit the few ; just 
so long as scholars and educators, whether from merciful or mer- 
cenary considerations, apotheosize the private school; just so long 
will our civilization be menaced, just so long will the problem of 
the self-government of man remain unsolved. Let us hope for the 
safety of the home and the security of the Nation, that the Spirit 
of Him who told us we must love our neighbor as ourself may 
permeate the Republic through the democratic patronage by all 
classes of our public high schools. 

It is in no specific sense a college preparatory institution. In 
other words the time has come when it resents interference from 
above. Neither the colleges nor universities are, nor have they any 
right to dictate its duties or its destiny. Whatever dictation it re- 
ceives must come from below, and it must adjust itself to the condi- 
tions which exist below. It is and must forever be the complement, 
not the supplement of the elementary school. 

The authorities of the high school, where they are distinct from 
those of the elementary school, whether they be a board of educa- 
tion clothed with statutory power to manage the high school as they 
see fit, or a principal who supervises the instruction given, should 
not claim to lay down conditions upon which pupils may enter the 
high school. The supervisor of the elementary school should be 
vested with full authority to determine who shall enter the high 
school and when. There should be no chasm between the elementary 
and the high school, to be bridged by the high school and toll exacted, 
as there should be no chasm between the high school and the col- 
lege, to be bridged by the college and toll exacted. As a pupil passes 
on his merit as determined by his teacher and the principal from 
the fifth to the sixth and from the seventh to the eighth grade, so 
as easily, as naturally, as justly he should pass from the eighth to 
the ninth grade, if that be the arbitrary dividing line between the 
common and the high school. I know there are some who afifect to 
believe that this is not good doctrine. There is a vast amount of un- 
professional friction here. The common school teacher indulges in 

79 



petty jealousies ; the high school teacher in cruel criticisms. The 
elementary school has a tender regard for those who come up 
through the grades. A watchful, nursing, motherly care is extended 
to them. They enter the highest grade and become exemplars to 
the school. What they learn is learned mostly in daily recitation. 
They have little time for study. They do not know what it means. 
They are young, childish, immature. They enter the high school 
with no special increase in age, maturity or development. A great 
shock comes to them. All is strange. They are in the lowest class. 
The pupils above look down upon them in a measure with scorn 
and contempt. Their prerogatives as leaders are taken away; 
methods of instruction are different ; subjects are new ; they are given 
lessons to learn; they do not know how to prepare them; teachers 
seem cold and unsympathetic; the pupils need encouragement and 
guidance ; they are supposed to be independent ; it is the adolescent 
period; changes physical, mental, moral, manifold, mysterious and 
far-reaching are in progress ; it is a perilous time ; parents and 
teachers take little cognizance of it ; a new world opens before these 
young people ; they begin to know themselves ; some are saved, many 
are lost; it is here, if anywhere, that co-education is a failure; it is 
here, if anywhere, that segregation means health, wisdom, safety. 
It is not strange that our educational shores are strewn with the 
wrecks of those who fail to surmount the difficulties and escape the 
dangers that beset them at this critical transitional period. All this 
misconception of the responsibility of the high school ; all this cold- 
ness and carelessness, this neglect and indifference should be changed 
and avoided. 

The true function of the free public high school will not be ful- 
filled until there is a better adjustment of the matter and methods 
in the elementary school. Passing by the kindergarten, which is 
the most valuable acquisition which has been made to our public 
school system in the last twenty years and which is destined to be- 
come an integral part of it wherever good judgment wields its 
authority, we inquire what can be done by way of shortening and 
enriching the elementary program, in order to aid the high school in 
the fulfillment of its true function? Opinions differ. There is a 
conservative radicalism and a radical conservatism, and these, in 
conflict through ceaseless agitation in assemblies of this kind, make 
progress. I have had the conviction for years, that our elementary 
school system needed remodeling. There is too much instruction in 
the mass, too little attention to individual tastes and talents. Divi- 

80 



I 



sion of labor or departmental work has not received the attention 
it merits. One year at least in the eight, I believe, is wasted. The 
practical value of common school arithmetic and common school 
geography for young children is, in my opinion, overestimated. Too 
much time and too little wisdom are expended upon them. Much 
nervous energy is expended on teaching applications of numbers 
that are beyond the comprehension and out of the field of vision of 
children. A child may as well commence algebra at twelve, as to 
wait until he is fifteen. He can well afford to interest himself in 
the physical aspects of geography at this age, rather than try to 
learn so much about the political view of this subject. Technical 
English grammar may better be taught through Latin than through 
the anomalies we have under the name of English grammar. There 
is no prevailing system of teaching English. It is all a tangled 
mass of hit and miss haphazard methods. With these and other 
things remedied we would sweeten and lengthen the school life of 
many a boy and girl and save them for the high school. 

The real function of the free public high school, however, must 
always depend upon the educational possessions, the inherited apti- 
tudes and the intellectual possibilities of its pupils. It must take 
the pupils from the common schools, as it finds them, and deal with 
them according to their needs. It should have a program rich in 
foreign languages, ancient and modern ; in science, especially physical 
geography, botany, zoology, physics and chemistry, in mathematics, 
in four years of history, in rhetoric and literature, in music and 
drawing, commercial work, manual training and domestic economy. 
There should be no insistence, however, that any one of these should 
be specifically required. There should be large liberty of choice and 
the pupil should be guided in that choice by those who know his 
past life and record, his temperament and disposition, his methods 
of attack, the inherited tendencies of his nature, his mental aptitudes, 
the Divine implantings, his tastes, his ambition, and so far as they 
are formed, his plans and purposes, and all his work should be 
arranged, so far as human skill and knowledge and interest will per- 
mit, in harmony with his acquisitions, consistent with his possibili- 
ties and for the quickest and best development of those special gifts, 
by the right use of which he is to make the most of himself in the 
arena of life. This is the function of the free public high school. 
No more genuflections at the altar of tradition. Old things are passed 
away. The people are in the saddle. These schools are established 
for them, are supported by them, and their will is law. 

81 



Now, what next? The high school, whether its curriculum be 
four years or six, and it will sometime surely be six, brings the 
pupil to the very threshold of the open door of life and at the same 
time through the same processes of education to what ought to be 
the threshold of the wide open door of college. Why ? Because to 
a very large extent, the boys and girls complete their school education 
with the high school. Their acquirements here and in the elementary 
school below, should be such as not necessarily and specifically to 
enable them to fulfill certain fixed requirements of the higher schools, 
but such as will enable them to grasp the function of true citizen- 
ship, to be self-sustaining bread-winners and successful in some 
line of labor, some occupation designated by the Infinite in their 
heredity and comprehended and appreciated by the finite in their 
instruction. 

The misfits of life are appalling, and these misfits come through 
ill-considered and mass-applied plans of education, through one's 
ignorance of himself and the lack of psychic wisdom on the part 
of those who are constantly trying to make square blocks fit into 
round holes. 

The child is the father of the man. The analysis of the man 
comes, however, too late in life. The study of the child is the need 
of the age. In discussing the function of the free public high 
school we cannot afford to shut our eyes to indisputable and astound- 
ing facts. 

It is an exaggeration, and I would rather exaggerate than ex- 
tenuate, to say that sixty per cent, of those who complete the ele- 
mentary school enter the high school. Of these less than thirty-five 
per cent., or twenty-one per cent, of those who complete the ele- 
mentary school receive a high school diploma, and of these less 
than twenty-five per cent., or five per cent, of those who obtain a com- 
mon school education enter college, and for patent and painful rea- 
sons less than one-half of these graduate. Therefore, I am bold to 
say that our whole educational system needs revision and a readjust- 
ment that shall bring it into closer harmony with the increasing de- 
mands and the higher ideals of a new era of thought and action. 
Whether in view of the primal purpose of the public high school, 
the great universities will ever stop their ill-advised and inhuman 
examinations of four or five days, to test the ability of the student 
to enter their sacred precincts, whether the colleges will cease in 
their padded catalogues, to lay down hard and fast requirements for 
admission and thereby seem to dictate to the public high schools, 

82 



the what and how and when of their work, is a very important 
question, and I have no doubt of its proper and practical settlement. 

Who would have thought ten years ago that Yale would abandon 
all its traditions and follow in the steps of its great rival. Harvard ? 
Who would have thought that the President of Columbia would 
advocate the conferring of a degree at the end of two years ? Who 
would have thought that Cornell would merge all its academic de- 
grees into the one of A. B. ? Who would have thought that the 
University of Chicago, with its twenty-five million dollars, would 
have yielded to the demand for admission by certificate ? Who would 
have thought that the leading professional schools would be con- 
triving in one way or another to ally themselves to the great uni- 
versities, that time, money and effort may be economized? Who 
would have thought that the greatest educational institution of the 
country would be a correspondence school with scarcely a local 
habitation or a name ? All these changes have been wrought grad- 
ually, imperceptibly, yet surely. Many others more radical and more 
marvellous still will be effected. For do we dare to smile when, 
from the Delphic Oracle of modern Methodism, comes the prophecy 
that ten years hence thirty colleges of the faith will array them- 
selves under the purple banner, and in a new baptism glory in the 
name of Northwestern? 

We do not yet understand the full forcefulness of the law of 
evolution which is bringing us step by step nearer and still nearer 
the coveted goal where the interests, not of the mass nor of the 
class, but of the individual will be paramount in the planning of 
one's educational career. 

The Chairman: 

I should be very sorry to cut any of these papers short, but 
President James said we must close this part of the discussion by 
four o'clock. 

Professor Clark will make an announcement. 

Professor Clark made announcement concerning the entertain- 
ment of the delegates. 

The Chairman : 

B. F. Buck, Principal of the Lake View High School, Chicago, 
will be the next speaker. 

Principai, Buck: 

I regret not to have been here in time to have heard all the papers. 
I regret also that I have not any theories for extended courses in 

83 



the high school at present. It seems to me that pretty much the 
whole ground has been covered, but after we have had our nap I 
am sure you can listen for a few minutes, and I will try not to keep 
you long. 

Much interest has been manifested in the recent discussions per- 
taining to the work of secondary schools. Of course, no educator 
now thinks seriously of the high school as simply a college prepara- 
tory institution, but practice has not kept pace with theory. The 
high school is no longer considered as simply a link in the chain 
of educational machinery, yet many high schools are nothing more 
than "advanced" grammar schools. New thought and new ideals 
have permeated the minds of some educators, and in special in- 
stances revolutions in curricula and methods have done much to 
bring about desired results. Still there is much to be done. Cur- 
ricula and methods need more renovating, more teachers need re- 
juvenating, more ideals need new direction and goals, more students 
need to be inspired with new ambitions and with different outlook. 
The high school must be in reality what it is sometimes thought to 
be in name, i. e., the "people's college." 

The high school has a distinct work to perform. Its problems are 
stupendous, and, at times, almost overwhelming. With all its obliga- 
tions to the student and to society, its work seems doubly important, 
and even crucial, to the welfare of the nation. From a long range it is 
only an intermediary step between the grammar school and the 
college; — only a few links in the chain which binds together the 
infant in arms, the ambitious youth, and the full grown man of 
affairs. From a clearer and a more intimate acquaintance, it pre- 
sents a far different aspect. It ought to be a preparatory school for 
college, but it ought to be vastly more. It ought to be an "advanced" 
grade in which only methods similar to those in vogue in the gram- 
mar schools are operative. It is no longer considered an expensive 
luxury designed to offer an opportunity for the education of the rich 
man's sons ; nor is it a charitable institution organized to furnish oc- 
cupation for the inefficient teacher or to shelter the unworthy poor. 
It is an integral part of worthy educational machinery. It should 
have ideals, methods, and problems distinctly its own. 

The high school exists because it is supposed to offer a suitable 
means for putting the individual into his proper relation with other 
individuals in a civilized community. It deals with real, vital and 
individual characteristics. In the elementary schools children are in- 
structed and trained en masse; in the university and in the field of 

84 



active life a man takes his place as an independent human being. 
From the elementary school to active citizenship is the all-important 
step from the standpoint of the welfare of both the individual, the 
state and humanity. 

The kind and quality of material composing- the organism, to- 
gether with a clear conception of the goal to be attained, suggest 
and direct the methods to be carried out in the high school work. 
The obligations and processes develop from within outward; the 
duties and regulations are imposed by the organization itself as it 
develops and not by any external authority or circumstance. The 
results cannot be judged by any one particular criterion. The whole 
sum of character is what approves or condemns its work and 
methods. 

The situation seems to me to be somewhat as follows: The 
high school has committed to its care boys and girls from all classes 
and all communities, who come with different preparation and with 
various ideals. They are at an age of change of growth, of evolution, 
and, if you please, of revolution. These changes are vitally con- 
nected with every part of their being. The physical changes are 
not the most important. New moods, new powers, new ideals, 
new ambitions are forming. Willfulness and inclination are be- 
ginning to give place to self-directed will. Young people are becom- 
ing conscious of new and individual strengths and weaknesses. Vic- 
tories and defeats begin to mean more. Relations to new ideas are 
being made and old ideals are being modified or discarded. The 
future is bright; the past begins to have more meaning. Latent 
possibilities of success or failure are greatest, a most noble life or a 
life of blackest disgrace is budding. The boys and girls really stand 
here at the "divergence of the ways." 

The problem then which confronts every high school is, how to 
discover and develop the interests and capacities of such individual 
boys and girls ; how to direct their development into full self-realiza- 
tion as useful members of society. To take these fickle-minded 
bundles of human flesh and bone with all their varying moods and 
passions and strong inclinations and extreme sensitiveness, and to 
make of them human beings self-controlled, with self-directed wills, 
forceful and courageous ; to find out what they can do and think 
and to direct the doing and thinking along the right lines; and to 
teach them to relate their thoughts and actions to society — these, 
it seems to me, are the proper functions of the high schools of the 
country. 

85 



The high school is unable in many cases to accomplish all this. 
At times it most lamentably fails. But its motives are right and its 
practices, while many times faulty, are in the main as good as could 
be expected if we take into consideration the human limitations to 
which they are subjected. It should not be condemned without rea- 
son. 

It would be difficult to express concisely what the high school 
really is when viewed from the standpoint above. It is not a social 
club, although it partakes of the nature of organized society in 
which individuals who are beginning to assert themselves, play an 
important part; it is not a paternal roof under which the life and 
actions of the home are conducted, although it has many of the 
same functions which are usually performed in the best homes; it 
is not a religious organization, although its standards of morality and 
its ethical teachings are second only in importance to the institution 
of sacred origin; it is not a political club, although the principles 
and practices of "essential democracy" should be among its most 
important precepts ; it is not designed primarily to disseminate liberal 
culture, although its teachings should be based upon broad and 
liberal lines which reach back to the fountain heads of knowledge 
of the past, which come from close observation of the present and 
from a clear vision of the future. The high school cannot be any 
one or a few of these and be successful in its work. It must com- 
bine the essential elements of all into a working organization. It 
must connect with life in its various phases. 

As an organization, made necessary by the division of labor to 
carry out the function of the home, the high school must in some 
ways be paternalistic, however unsavory that word may be to the 
minds of some parents and educators. Delegated authority is no 
less paternalistic because delegated. Representing the home, the 
high school must accept and deal with various virtues and various 
eccentricities of such homes with a view to elevating those which 
have less light to the standard of those which are best; as an in- 
stitution established by the state, the high school must represent the 
state and prepare for active citizenship in the state by instilling into 
its would-be citizens the prime elements and active characteristics 
of the best citizenship. As an organization in a social fabric, the 
high school must be subject more or less to the demands of social 
life, in so far as they are not in conflict with the home and state. As 
with the church so with the school — the function of ethical train- 
ing is more or less delegated to each. The school is held responsible 

86 



and justly too, I think, to a great degree, whether it wishes to be or 
not, for a large part of the ethical training of the youth of the land. 

From this it is not difficult to understand how complex is the 
institution called the high school. Starting with the proposition that 
the high school exists for the benefit of the student, it is plainly 
seen that such a conglomeration of material as comes to the high 
school at such a critical time in the life of the child from so many 
different sources and methods and environments, to be put into new 
environments, under strange teachers and subjected to different 
methods, furnishes a difficult situation to handle. It is a practical 
problem which confronts the high school. 

To accomplish the desired result, the high school must rely first 
of all upon the ordinary curricula of the school. These curricula 
must be such as minister to the actual needs of the civilization of 
the present. They should be such as will assist in the development 
of the child for intelligent and effective service, and will inculcate 
in him an abiding sense of his obligations to the state and to 
humanity. To teach boys and girls to think seriously about facts 
presented by such courses of study and to begin to appreciate the 
relations of such facts to their own lives is the first great duty 
of the high school. To think precisely, intelligently and consistently 
along these lines is the essential aim of the educational process from 
the high school standpoint. Naturally the treatment of the facts of 
life varies as the stages of the educational processes vary. To the 
child in the kindergarten facts appeal to the senses ; later in life they 
appeal to memory, reason and judgment. In the high school facts 
have less and less significance and the relation of facts, one to an- 
other, to the student and to life, receives most attention. In college, 
relationship is still more emphasized, and facts have a less important 
place. My point is that the thinking in the high school is along the 
line of adjusting of facts to one another by means of the considera- 
tion of their relationship. The boy is gradually beginning to think 
out the place in the physical, ethical and intellectual universe which 
facts occupy, and then their relationship to his own life and actions. 
The truth, as it appeals to him, is the nourishment and mental gym- 
nastics of his mind, but only a means, however, and not an end. Not 
being interested in the work is not finding its relation to life. What- 
ever is not satisfactory in the high school, is so mainly because of the 
lack of visible and intelligible relationship. Material for thought is 
often found in superabundance, but the meaning of the whole thing 
is often too obscure. 

87 



At this point we meet the value of manual training, domestic 
science and commercial studies which have recently been introduced 
into some schools. They are good in proportion as they enlist the 
co-operation of the relating activity of the mind — as they find their 
meaning in the scheme of education. The courses in these subjects 
must be cerebral as well as manual. "The chemist in his laboratory 
may be just as much of a mechanic as the carpenter in his shop." 
Unless he thinks about the relations of the elements which make up 
the compound, he is not a scientist. The same is true of all who 
work with other subjects. 

But learning to think or training oneself to think in this way 
is not an easy task, nor can it be done in a short time. It comes 
only by persistent and painstaking effort in a few definite directions. 
Nor will it suffice to try everything in the programme of studies 
offered with the hope of finding something suited to tastes and in- 
clinations. A taste of a little of everything does not imply thinking 
on these subjects. A bluff at general culture is not culture at all — 
and further still it is from real thinking. I am convinced in one 
particular thing our boys and girls are making a great mistake — i. 
e., in allowing themselves to feel that because a study or a task is 
not to their particular liking they should not attempt it. To give 
up a study simply because it is hard is productive of flabbiness of 
brain and moral fibre. Nor would I go to the other extreme and 
compel all to grind through the same unpleasant tasks. There might 
be found a middle course for action. Some particular studies should 
be taken long enough so that the students will get from them some 
power of consecutive thought along certain definite lines. There is 
much in Dr. Martineau's statement of the case. He says that the 
student now-a-days comes with a bill of rights in his hands and 
says, "Mind, you must not be dull or I shall go to sleep ; you must 
attract me, or I shall not get on an inch ; you must rivet my atten- 
tion, or my thoughts will wander." The reply of the doctor has 
much sense : He says, "This enervated mood is the canker of manly 
thought and action." 

Boys and girls of high school age often do not appreciate the 
fact that strength of mind does not result from energies wasted 
or dissipated in the time of their youth by dawdling with this or 
that study or task. Yet I feel that the majority of young people 
are not so much to be blamed for this condition of things as are 
their teachers and parents. I think Dean Briggs of Harvard is cor- 
rect when he says that "nothing debilitates a boy more effectively 



than the notion that teachers exist for his amusement and if educa- 
tion does not alhire him, so much the worse for education." I feel 
that the healthy boy or girl is interested in doing things, is interested 
in close thinking, and is consciously accumulating some power to put 
into action ideas which may have been acquired. It seems to me we 
ought to recognize this and not, because of our over-fondness and 
misguided thoughts about the real purpose of life, allow ourselves 
to be led away in our practice from the paths of rectitude and virtue. 
In practical life the job, as it is called, has to be done and in practical 
life the man or woman who has not gained power through training, 
who has not developed mental character and moral stamina, will have 
a hard time. The boys and girls have responsibilities in the struggle ; 
they have their part to perform. The weak indulgence of the over- 
fond parent or teacher will not avail. The teacher can help, but can- 
not make the child master of himself. The "exceptional case" will 
not stand in a democracy of equals. The dignity of hard work must 
be emphasized and fortunate is the boy or girl who recognizes the 
value of painstaking, persevering labor before he gets far in the high 
school course. 

But the high school that aimed to teach boys and girls to think 
would be far from accomplishing its purpose as a good secondary 
school. Another important object is to promote an intellectual and 
intelligent interest in life. The majority of those who enter high 
school end their education with the high school course. Many do 
not even remain long enough to become imbued in the slightest 
degree with the spirit which the high school attempts to cultivate. 
To make a living seems to be the supreme end of many, and unless 
the high school bends all its energies toward fitting for bread- 
winning, it has no attractions. Parents and teachers, too, are often 
afflicted with the same idea. 

To gain a livelihood is commendable. One must not be a debtor 
to the community. One must prove his right to live and must en- 
rich the community in which he lives. But too much enriching the 
community is liable to impoverish oneself. My point is that the 
high school is under obligations to the boys and girls interested, not 
only in gaining an honest livelihood, but more interested in the 
higher things of life. My plea is against sordid money-getting as 
the sole aim in existence and to the effect that "life is more than 
meat and the body than raiment." 

For any responsible work men and women of character are 
needed, not men and women who have been pampered and coddled 

89 



from childhood up, but such as are social integers not ciphers. "Dem- 
ocratic government," says a late writer, "is the standing together of 
men and women who could each stand alone, men who can break up 
the solidarity of self and pelf to the unanimity — the voluntary co- 
operation of free souls." The high school ought to aim to make 
such social integers. 

Another important aim is to teach boys and girls to take the 
initiative in matters pertaining to the common weal, to lay aside 
personal whims for the sake of the general good, to respect self 
enough to develop self-realization, to take the initiative in growth 
and culture, in the duties and obligations of life as well as in its 
pleasures, to cultivate right civic ideals, to lay aside personal greed, 
in fact to cultivate the intellectual and ethical self — all come within 
the province of the work of the public high school. 

It is said that Buddha warned his followers against a certain 
kind of altruism when he told them not to worship him; therefore 
he told them "to become" and like a wise teacher he showed them 
"the way." This way the high school tries to point out by means of 
inspiration, suggestion, av/akening, arousing, stimulating, and cor- 
recting to a sense of the necessity of being a positive individual. Will 
must take the place of a preponderance of inclination and willfulness 
which are most prominent in the early years of the course. The 
high school boy arrives at the desired conditions only by means of 
what is called, for the sake of better terms, "government," under the 
direction of wise and discreet teachers and supervisors who act as 
directors and interpreters. To be "good" and to act to the full what 
has been said at the start is contrary to all expectation and common 
sense. The steps are many, the devices are as varied as are the 
various temperaments of the individuals. The whole sum of char- 
acter as divisible into its parts as Shakespeare must have recognized 
when he made Malcolm speak of the "king becoming graces as 
justice, verity, temperance, stableness, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, 
devotion, patience, courage, and fortitude." Many men have pos- 
sessed one or more of these graces, but to stand off and admire 
them would make us nothing more than good hero-worshipers. We 
must do even more than Mr. Squeers did. We must have students 
"become" 

The steps necessary in trying to bring students to a realizing 
sense of correctness of such a way of thinking and acting as I have 
described are too numerous for discussion at this time. It is enough 
to say that the teacher above all, first, and second, the sense of 

90 



responsibility which may be aroused in the student, are the two most 
important factors at work in bringing about the desired results. 
"Graduation," some one has said, "is the vanishing point of the 
teacher." I might add that when the student can stand alone, when 
he becomes a social integer with the power of initiation, with inclina- 
tions and will directed toward acquiring the king becoming graces, 
then his high school course will have been completed. 

The Chairman: 

We must go on to Topic III. and at the end of that topic will 
come the general discussion on Topics II. and III. 

Edwin G. Dexter, Professor of Education, University of Illinois, 
is the first speaker. 

(Professor Dexter was not present at this session. His paper 
appears below.) 

WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF THE SYSTEM OF ACCREDIT- 
ING SCHOOLS BY THE UNIVERSITIES UPON THE 
HIGH SCHOOL AND ITS DEVELOPMENT? 

Proi^essgr Dexter: 

Few educational problems of greater importance are before us 
today than those which have to do with the closing up of the 
chinks in our school system. We didn't know they were there at 
all until the whole machine became very complicated, but compli- 
cated mechanisms demand careful adjustment and evidences of lost 
motion are now apparent all along the line. Each part works well 
by itself and the whole works passably well but after all will stand 
considerable tightening of nuts before it goes without a squeak. 
A little filing off needs to be done to make smooth joints between 
the grades; an extra clamp is needed where they join the high 
school ; and there seems to be a place for a little dovetailing where 
the college joins the professional school : all those things are pretty 
generally conceded by all educators, but what is wanted where high 
school meets college is a mooted question. Nobody seems to know 
definitely whether it is a saw or a jack screw. 

The American school system has always presented too many evi- 
dences of stratification. This is not strange since schools have ever 
been jealous of their prerogatives, but the occasional chasms, bridged 
only by formal examination, have been detrimental to the best results. 
The unfortunate joint at the lower contact of the high school stratum 

91 



was largely caused by the assumption on the part of those schools 
themselves — entirely without psychological basis — that certain sub- 
jects, as for instance foreign languages, algebra and geometry, be- 
longed to them and must not be violated by the lower grades. This 
made it necessary for the child to defer their commencement to a 
period some years later than sound pedagogics would demand, and at 
the same time devote a period of life to them during which he might 
be busying himself with other subjects better fitted to his stage of 
development. This difficulty is righting itself through the breaking 
down of the line of demarkation between the elementary school and 
the secondary school, and the more posts we can pull out of the 
fence the better. There is no reason, either logical or psychological 
for any breaks from the beginning to the end of the public school 
system. They are but suggestions to the pupil to drop out, and the 
sooner they are done away with the better for an educated citizenship. 
The high school is now willing, as it was not a generation ago, to see 
algebra, geometry and some of the languages begun in the grades 
below, and the next decade is bound to see marked changes on this 
account. 

By a common understanding on the part of the colleges and high 
schools the breach between the two is fast being closed. Until com- 
paratively recently the secondary school was pre-eminently a fitting 
school. The universities, through their entrance requirements, pre- 
scribed to an unwarranted degree the work of the school. Now all is 
changing with encouraging rapidity, and in this respect the West is 
leading the East. In place of the old demand for students who know 
definite things the colleges are asking those with a mental capacity 
developed in proportion to their years. Never was there a time when 
prescriptions were so few. The measure of mental development is, 
to be sure, subjects studied for a certain time, but with certain 
restrictions what those subjects are is immaterial. 

At your own State University which has always been in the front 
rank of higher institutions of learning recognizing this fact, a recent 
change in entrance requirement makes even broader than before the 
possibility of optional offerings, although at the same time making a 
little larger demand for general development. In the colleges of 
science, engineering, agriculture, and law, but three subjects are pre- 
scribed — English, mathematics, and science — out of a list of eligibles 
numbering twenty-three, and in the College of Literature and Arts 
but four. Whatever may have been the justice in the past of the accu- 
sation that the higher institutions dominate the course of study for the 

92 



secondary schools it is not supported by present conditions. Their 
influence today is thrown in the direction of making certain that 
what is done is done well rather than dictating beyond very narrow 
limits what it shall be. 

This condition of affairs has done away to a very great extent 
with the necessity of a division of courses into those leading to 
college entrance and those fitting for life. That training which fits 
for a life of any breadth fits for college, and the higher institutions 
are beginning to recognize the fact. Your own State University 
stands firmly on that ground. It says practically to the high school, 
you fit for life and we recognize the fact that you do it well. No 
boy or girl of eighteen can be better fitted. If conditions with him 
or her are such that the period of intellectual infancy, the period 
for which development, intellectual and physical, is a vocation 
and not an avocation, must cease at that time, the student has the 
God speed of every intelligent man, whether in the university or 
out of it. If, however, he can devote four years more — or six — to 
the business of intellectual development, the higher institution is 
willing to undertake the supervision of such a course. It does not 
say, "you have done well but we can do better." Its position is 
based upon the fact which no one can deny that twenty-two years 
devoted to the business of development produce larger results than 
eighteen, those results being measured in terms of adaptation to 
the environment in all its many forms. We would say of the college 
course what we have already said of the high school; that it is not 
a preparation for life but another sample of life, though in this 
case, cut bigger. 

But two methods are in practice for bridging the chasm between 
secondary schools and college, and determining the intellectual fitness 
of our youth for higher academic work : the first is the examination 
of the individual pupil. This is a copy of the English system and 
in some ways resembles too closely the Chinese. The second is 
through the examination of the school and the acceptance of its 
dictum as to the capability of the product on which it is willing to 
put its stamp of approval. The first was, until within a generation 
virtually the only one in practice in our country and is still repre- 
sentative of Eastern methods. The second is a characteristically 
Western product. The question before us today is not one of the 
relative values of these two plans, but one of the actual results of 
one of them, and is to be discussed by men who are in a better 
position to observe its actual working results than are any others 

93 



in our country. I am glad, however, to be able to say a word on the 
subject at this time even though I be in a sense an uninitiate, for I 
am in a position to observe the working of the accrediting system 
at close hand, and at the same time to say certain things which the 
innate modesty of our high school visitors might restrain them from 
saying. 

The first is that in my opinion, the greatest advantage of the 
system is that it gives us the high school visitor. As the visible 
and tangible point of contact between the college and the secondary 
school he is proving himself the most valuable officer in our whole 
public school system so far as those high schools are concerned 
which are trying to raise the standard of their work. It is trite 
to say that our schools are pulled up from above and not pushed up 
from below, and if my friends will pardon the figure, they are the 
string. Our large high schools need little such lifting, and if they 
did, their competent and experienced principals and superintendents 
can do most of it. Not so, however, with the smaller schools headed 
as they are of necessity with men either deficient in knowledge and 
experience or in brains, and the high school visitor, in a position 
as he is to observe the course of study, the teachers, the equipment 
both as to buildings and scientific apparatus, and the many problems 
which are puzzling the principal, comes as a friend and adviser with 
possibilities of the greatest good. Adviser I say, for he has no 
mandatory power and that is one of the great advantages of the 
office. Teachers share with other humans the characteristic dislike 
for dictation, and I doubt if any official possessing the power to 
command could produce the results that the moral and intellectual 
suasion of this officer is bringing about. He is the educational expert 
of the secondary school system, and as such meets the school board 
which the principal is struggling to convince of the wisdom of 
some move, and in nine cases out of ten wins the point. The East 
has been attempting the system of admission to college through the 
certificate system — a modified accrediting system — and do not en- 
thuse, but they have left out of it the high school visitor and therein 
lies the trouble. No condescension in the way of an inspection of 
schools on the part of a college professor picked at random or be- 
cause he wants a day off from the class room can ever take the 
place of his visitation. Such a one is out of his province, and the 
high schools know it. 

I am convinced that another advantage of the accrediting system 
comes through an increased proportion of high school students who 

94 



go to college. In the graduating class of the public high schools 
in the North Atlantic States, the part of our country little given to 
the accrediting plan, twenty-six per cent, were for the year 1901 in 
the college preparatory course. In the same class of schools in the 
North Central States where the system is in practical control, the per- 
centage was thirty-four for the same year. These figures in them- 
selves are not conclusive, for other conditions may have influenced 
the results, but are certainly very suggestive. I would, however, 
base my argument upon a general analysis of human nature. Many 
of us are so constituted as to be willing to give up a course of action 
which seems to us desirable for one less to be preferred if the 
former carries with it any considerable chance of failure — while 
the latter is practically certain of success. It is true that the element 
of chance is particularly attractive to some, but they are in a 
minority and when it comes to the average high school graduate 
the hazard of a college entrance examination is little short of a 
nightmare. It is not strange that it should be, for I doubt if any- 
thing in his previous career, or with one in ten, anything in his after 
experience carries with it so large an element of uncertainty as this 
same college entrance examination for all except the leaders in the 
class. 

Pedagogically this is all wrong and it is not strange that many 
refuse the hazard. No part of our educational machinery has a 
right to subject the student to a sudden stress far in excess of any 
which he has met, and in all probability in excess of any which will 
come within his after experience. One's educational career is 
intended to school him in the events which he is likely to meet in 
life, not those remotely possible. Otherwise we might have a regular 
fire drill which should include the jumping out of second story 
windows. One in ten thousand may have to do this in the course 
of his life, but how about the mental and physical wear and tear 
upon the rest? And how about the effect of such a required drill 
upon school attendance? If it were required in the seventh grade, 
how many pupils should we have? In my opinion the college 
entrance examination acts with many students in the same way, and 
if we want more students in college, is deleterious. 

But to take another point: The accrediting system gives the 
colleges students with a better average preparation. Comparative 
statistics are hard to secure upon the point but all lead in the same 
direction. One large university in the East (Pennsylvania) receives 
about an equal number of students each year upon each of the two 

95 



plans — individual examination and certificate. In the fall of 1901 
one hundred twelve entered by the first method and one hundred one 
by the second. At the end of the first semester forty-nine per cent, 
of those entering by examination received conditions, while but 
twenty-nine per cent, of the certificated students received that set 
back. Another comparison which I was able to make, one between 
the percentage of failures in first year subjects by the freshmen in 
one of the Atlantic Coast universities which admitted only by exam- 
ination, and those of five of the larger State universities of the Middle 
West, where eighty per cent, of the students enter without examina- 
tion, shows very plainly either that the criterion for grading is very 
different for the two regions or that the Western institutions get 
much better prepared pupils. The figures are as follows: 

East, failed algebra, twenty-six per cent.; failed trigonometry, 
thirty-four per cent. West, failed algebra, fifteen per cent.; failed 
trigonometry, eleven per cent. 

The Western institutions covered stand as high in the educational 
world as does the Eastern, but since we cannot be sure of their 
criteria we cannot perhaps base upon the figures an unquestionable 
argument in favor of the certificated freshman. They are, however, 
very suggestive. 

In the case of the investigation conducted by Principal Ramsey of 
Fall River some years ago to determine the relative merits of the 
two methods of college entrance, definite answers were secured from 
large numbers of college officers as to their opinion of the preparation 
of the two classes of freshman students. The returns were in favor 
of the certificated students: in mental ability five to one; in the 
general performance of college duties, three to one. 

Professor Whitney also reports as the result of an investiga- 
tion made at the University of Michigan, and covering the freshman 
grades of more than 1,000 students, about equally divided between 
those entering upon credit and those taking the entrance examina- 
tion, that the average standing of the former was 88.91 per cent, 
while for the latter it was 87.22, a difference of more than one and 
one-half per cent. 

From these facts we can hardly doubt the superiority of our plan 
as judged by the colleges. But after all, the superior student comes 
in the long run from the superior school which is conducted by 
superior methods and that is where all this bears upon our question. 

The seeming effect of the accrediting system as carried on at the 
University of Illinois upon the large high schools of our State is most 

96 



interesting and encouraging. I say seeming effect for no one can 
determine with exactness the magnitude of any one force among 
many which have produced changes in conditions, yet it seems to me 
to be beyond a doubt that the State University and its method of 
accrediting has been the most important influence in bringing about 
the change shown. 

In 1895 a regular high school visitor was first appointed, the 
examination of schools having been up to that time carried on by 
means of occasional visits by various members of the University 
faculty. For the years since that time, the number of schools upon 
the accredited list is as follows: 1896, 135; 1897, 150; 1898, 163; 
1899, 179; 1900, 193; 1901, 208; 1902, 231 ; 1903, 250. 

These numbers represent for each year practically the entire num- 
ber of schools within the State which were of sufficient academic 
standing as to be recognized by the University as in any sense its 
feeders, since all schools seem desirous of the accredited relations 
as soon as they are acceptable. This growth in numbers of schools 
cannot, however, be accredited wholly to university influence since 
such is not felt, except in a general way, until application is made 
for the first visitation. That it is felt, however, cannot be doubted. 

But the interesting facts are those which show the rapidity with 
which additional subjects are offered for credit when once the 
accredited relations have been established. 

At the time the high school visitor was first established, a large 
proportion — nearly one-half — of the 135 schools were only partially 
accredited ; that is, were not able to meet in full the not very exacting 
requirements which the University then made. Since that time not 
only the proportion of partially accredited schools, but the actual 
number of such schools has rapidly diminished, although the require- 
ments for admission have twice been raised with a still broader 
demand to go into effect in 1905. In 1901 when the question of 
raising the entrance requirements was before the University Senate, 
it was shown that if the requirement of thirty-six credits were 
immediately raised to forty-two, there would be less partially accred- 
ited schools upon the list at the latter figure than there were three 
years before at the former ; that is, that there had been an average 
increase of six credits or of two full years acceptable work in the 
smaller schools in three years' time. It was also shown that the 
average number of credits presented by the freshmen entering the 
College of Literature and Arts in the fall of 1902 was 42.41 and 
that of the whole number, less than two per cent, were conditioned 

97 



because of any inability of the schools from which they came to fur- 
nish adequate preparation ; all of which was in marked contrast with 
the situation a few years before. It cannot, of course, be said with 
certainty that the accrediting system was at the bottom of this 
change, but it is plain to one who is in a position to watch all the 
educational pieces at work in our State, that it had much to do with 
it. 

Of the direct influence of the accrediting method upon the 
curricula, the teachers and the pupils of the secondary schools, and 
upon the boards of education, I have not time to speak, but it is 
potent and for good. Other speakers will undoubtedly discuss those 
points in detail. 

The Chairman: 

J. F. Brown, Professor of Education and Inspector of Schools, 
State University of Iowa, will be the next speaker. 

Professor Brown: 

The writer of this paper has been Inspector of Schools for the 
State University of Iowa for two years and the statements made in 
the paper are based largely upon his observations during that period. 

It is assumed in the following discussion that a system of 
accrediting schools implies visitation and inspection of these schools 
either by an official whose main business it is to examine them or 
by some member or members of a university faculty specially de- 
tailed for the purpose. It is not assumed that every accredited 
school must be inspected by a representation of every college or 
university with which it stands in the accredited relationship. One 
inspector may serve for many institutions, but inspection and report 
by some authority there must be. What a system of accredited 
schools without such inspection might accomplish, the writer has no 
desire to suggest. 

Before taking up the main question of the paper, that is, the 
effect of the system of accrediting schools by the universities upon 
the high school and its development, it may be well to ask concern- 
ing the purpose or purposes of the university in inspecting and 
accrediting a school. The answer clearly is that just as the indi- 
vidual applicant for admission to the university is subjected to a 
more or less rigid examination, under the examination system, to 
determine whether he has met the admission requirements and is 
qualified to undertake the university course successfully, so, under 
the inspection system, the school is examined to see whether it is 



doing work in amount, kind and quality such that its graduates and 
those bearing proper credentials from it, can be safely assumed to 
be prepared to enter upon the university course successfully. And 
just as the student who has satisfactorily passed the entrance exam- 
ination is given a certificate of admission to the university, so the 
school whose work has been judged satisfactory under inspection 
is recognized as maintaining an accredited relationship with the 
university. The primary purpose in either case is to determine the 
fitness of the student to take up university work, the only difference 
being that in one case the individual, and in the other case, the school 
is examined and admitted to organic relationship with the college. 
The fundamental interest of the university in the high school lies 
in the fact that the latter is, in the main, the source of supply for the 
student material of the former, and some means must be used to 
determine officially the amount and kind of preparation possessed by 
these students. There is not necessarily any interest on the part of 
the university in the high school considered as an institution existing 
on its own account. Historically and logically the first interest of 
the university in the high school arises from the fact that the latter 
is a preparatory school. That the high school does actually improve 
under the examination system or under the inspection system is a 
more or less incidental effect. 

But, under the inspection system, this incidental effect arises to 
so great prominence as to be worthy of mention as a second definite 
purpose of the university in adopting the accrediting system and 
providing for the work of inspection. Educational reform proceeds 
from the top downwards and the university by carrying into its 
preparatory schools the influence of its broader viewpoint, seeks 
to improve these schools, not only as preparatory schools, but as 
institutions which have obligations to that larger part of their con- 
stituency who never go to college. The private university plans to 
this end in laying out the work of its system of accredited private 
schools, and the State University plans similarly in its suggestions to 
the public high schools of the State. 

Intimately connected with the foregoing purpose may be men- 
tioned that of the formation of an organic system of schools so 
arranged that each part will influence every other part and mutual 
improvement be the result. The university is to be influenced by the 
high school as well as the high school by the university. The way 
from the kindergarten through the university is to be made as easy 
as the serious nature of the work will permit and at every point in 



99 



iLofC. 



the course the pupil is to be stimulated by the view of that which 
is just ahead. 

A fourth purpose of the university in supporting the accrediting 
system lies in the fact that the work of visitation of high schools 
by members of the university faculty gives these university teachers 
a direct knowledge of the secondary school work that is of great 
value to them in their own teaching. The University of Michigan, the 
pioneer in the accrediting system as in so many other things, main- 
tained the plan for twenty-five years before a regular school inspector 
was appointed, the work of visitation having been done during that 
period by members of the University faculty in turn, and the writer 
has been informed that President Angell regarded this reflex influ- 
ence as one of the best results of the system. 

A fifth purpose may be given as the desire of the university to 
secure students through the influence of its representative in the 
school and the community. 

These, then, may be given as the main purposes of the university 
in adopting the accrediting system, namely, the determination of the 
fitness of a student to enter upon university work, the improvement 
of the high school, not only as a preparatory school but as an educa- 
tional institution existing on its own account, the formation of a 
unified system of schools, the better adaptation of university teach- 
ing as a result of the knov/ledge of secondary school work gained 
through school visitation by members of the university faculty, and 
the securing of students through the influence of a university repre- 
sentative in the schools. 

We turn now to the question of the effect of the system upon 
the high school and its development. 

That the schools actually do improve under the influence of the 
university exerted principally through its inspector, no one who has 
observed the workings of the system will be disposed to deny. In 
determining the extent and the rapidity of the improvement, much 
depends upon the degree of authority with which this inspector is 
clothed. In some States he can say, "do this or your school will lose 
its place on the acredited list," which means to lose the State appro- 
priation of $600 to $1,000 annually. In such a case a suggestion 
must be practically equivalent to a command. In Iowa the inspect- 
or's relation to the schools is little more than advisory. The most 
that he can say is that "If your school is to secure or maintain 
accredited relations with the State University and the colleges of the 
State, it will be expected to meet such and such conditions." The 

100 



only penalty in case of refusal is that the school is taken from the 
accredited list. However, this is an unpleasant experience both for 
the sehool and for the man who is responsible for its condition at 
the time it is deposed. In general, it may be said, then, that the 
inspector has great influence in determining the character of the 
school. 

So far, as the effect of the system upon the high school is con- 
cerned, it is an open question which is better, the absolute authority 
of the inspector, as for example in Minnesota, or the more nearly 
advisory relation which exists in Iowa. Certainly the former method 
will accomplish results in much less time, but the latter has the 
advantage of encouraging a certain spontaneity and independence on 
the part of the high school at the same time that the other desired 
ends are secured. This spirit of independent co-operation is a very 
desirable result. The writer has rarely found himself wishing for 
more authority than he has. 

Were the high school inspector to insist upon making the high 
school a mere preparatory school, he would not be well received. 
Prejudice against him sometimes exists on this account, but when 
school authorities understand that he is working for the good of the 
school as a whole and not merely for that part of it who expect to 
go to college, the prejudice disappears and his suggestions are made 
welcome. In Iowa this important preliminary work had been largely 
accomplished before the present inspector entered upon the work and 
now schools are exceedingly desirous of securing and maintaining 
good standing with the University and the colleges. 

The efifect of the accrediting system upon the high school is 
manifested in different ways. In the first place, since the primary 
interest of the university in the school lies in the fact that the students 
of the latter must be received by the former, it follows that the 
first effort of the university will be to inspire the school to meet 
entrance requirements. The elements of these requirements are to 
be found in the amount, kind and quality of work done, in the num- 
ber, scholarship and efficiency of the teachers, in buildings, in library 
and laboratory facilities, in the length of the recitation period, in 
the number of daily recitations required of each teacher and in the 
general atmosphere of the school. But the school cannot improve 
in these particulars without offering better opportunities to all pupils 
whether they go to college or not. Hence, unless it happens that 
in becoming a better preparatory school, the high school loses its 
efficiency considered as an institution of worth on its own account, 

101 



it follows that with the improvement of the school incident to its 
becoming accredited, there come larger and better opportunities to all 
the members of the school regardless of their future career. 

Just at this point we may raise more definitely the question 
whether the insistence of the university that accredited schools must 
prepare students for college does not necessarily turn aside the school 
from a free development as the school of the people. For answer 
I may say that in Iowa we frankly assume that the high school is 
not primarily a preparatory school, that it belongs to the people, 
that it has a work to do regardless of the existence of the college 
and that if it prepares boys and girls for college, it is only because 
such preparation is a service to the people. In the case of schools 
that offer but one four year course of study, we do not insist upon 
the maximum amount of work in those subjects which are usually 
regarded as preparatory subjects in contrast with practical subjects. 
This remark applies especially to Latin. If the community sentiment 
opposes Latin but will support strong, thorough work in other sub- 
jects we insist upon only two years of Latin, the minimum amount 
required for admission to the Scientific and Engineering courses of 
the University, and we give a hearty Godspeed to the development 
of the work in the so-called more practical subjects. In the case 
of schools that offer two courses of study, we ask that one shall 
contain four years of foreign language, but we encourage making 
the other as irregular as may be necessary to meet the practical 
sentiment of the community, at the same time making it as strong as 
possible. Usually the subjects are the same in both courses except 
that in the second course an option with Latin through the four 
years is offered. Consequently, with the improvement of the Latin 
or College Preparatory Course comes the improvement of at least 
three- fourths of the work in the non-preparatory course. The 
emphasis of criticism is usually placed upon the lack of thoroughness 
in the work below the high school as well as in it. Hence, whatever 
influence the University has is exerted for the benefit of the entire 
school. 

The presence of the inspector in the school has a stimulating 
influence upon the entire community. He is often asked to address 
the students or to talk with them privately and it is not mere senti- 
ment to say that the opportunity to inspire and stimulate his listeners 
is unequaled in any other position. He is asked to talk with teachers 
individually or collectively and to offer criticisms and suggestions 
concerning their work. These conferences afford an opportunity 

102 



for encouraging words as well as for frank adverse criticism and 
they result in a better mutual understanding of the difficulties to be 
encountered and the work to be done. He is invited to meet school 
boards and sometimes to give a public address to the patrons of the 
school. All these occasions offer the university through its inspector 
an opportunity to direct and to stimulate the educational work of 
the high school community. 

The Iowa schools have been largely influenced in the past two 
years by bulletins published from time to time by the University. 
One of these contained suggestions and directions for small high 
schools having but two teachers and a three year course of study. 
A second dealt with the course of study for the four year high school. 
A third had to do with the work in English throughout the four 
years. These bulletins were partly a statement of University re- 
quirements and partly advisory in character. Reports from the 
schools show that they have had great influence in determining the 
high school courses of study. Much greater unity and a considerable 
degree of uniformity in the courses are now apparent. 

The actual results of the work of the inspector are well illus- 
trated by a few concrete instances. About two years ago the writer 
visited two schools on successive days. The first one was miserably 
housed. About $2,000 had been spent the previous year patching 
up an old building that should have been torn down. At the request 
of the superintendent, the inspector called upon the members of the 
school board at their places of business. He spoke well of the spirit 
of the school and of its possibilities but he took occasion to condemn 
the school building in very vigorous terms. The board insisted that 
taxes were already too heavy and that the old building must do. 
But today there stands on that same site a substantial modern eight 
room building costing $22,000. The following day he visited another 
school little better housed and not so well equipped. Again he and 
the superintendent called upon individual members of the school 
board. They were very unresponsive when he spoke of the needs 
of the school. The inspector regarded the case as well nigh hopeless 
and was sorry he had not passed by on the other side. But before 
the beginning of the next year's work there had been added to the 
school a special teacher in the grades, an additional teacher, a college 
graduate, in the high school, and $600 worth of books and laboratory 
supplies. The course of study had been revised so that graduates 
from the school could enter the University without condition. The 
inspector does not claim all the credit for accomplishing these ends. 

103 



Without the work of an energetic superintendent they would have 
been impossible. But without the inspector's help they would not 
have been accomplished so soon. 

Last year a certain school was taken from the accredited list. 
After his visit the inspector learned that his criticisms had not been 
kindly received by one member of the school board with whom he 
had talked freely. But this year there is a new superintendent and 
new teachers and, at the request of the board, the inspector has been 
consulted several times with regard to the reorganization of the 
school. 

The inspector is often called upon to recommend teachers and it 
is a pleasure to assist the worthy ones in securing more agreeable 
and more lucrative positions. No small influence is exerted in this 
way. 

In general it is true that at the suggestion of the inspector old 
buildings have been repaired and new ones erected, the course of 
study has been revised, books for the library and apparatus for the 
laboratory have been purchased, inefficient teachers and superintend- 
ents have been dismissed and additional teachers have been employed. 
Sometimes these changes have been made because the authorities 
have understood that such changes were necessary if the school was 
to maintain its place on the accredited list, but more often they have 
been brought about because the superintendent and the board have 
seen them to be necessary for the proper progress of the school. Not 
infrequently the inspector is invited and urged to visit a school to 
help in securing some needed improvement or to assist in rousing 
the educational spirit of the community. In a very important sense 
this is the most pleasant work which he is called upon to perform. 
His distinctly judicial duties are not always so agreeable. There 
are many superintendents and teachers who can profit by his sug- 
gestions. He tries to deal justly and to speak frankly, at the same 
time loving mercy especially when it is directed towards the 
children. 

At present no particular effort is being made to increase the 
number of accredited schools. A higher standard of efficiency 
among those already enrolled is the main concern. But there is no 
lack of applicants and school boards are in many cases willing to 
put forth strenuous efforts in order to meet the requirements. 

In dealing with accredited schools or those desiring to be ac- 
credited, the welfare of the school as a whole rather than special 
university interests are emphasized. If the former is properly safe- 

104 



guarded the latter will take care of themselves. The bulletins pre- 
viously mentioned were sent to small unaccredited schools and there 
is evidence that these too have felt the influence of the call for 
greater thoroughness in the work and are responding to it. 

When to the influence of the official inspector there can be added 
the help that comes from the occasional presence and the sympathetic 
criticism of university department representatives in the high school, 
the beneficent results already mentioned must be greatly increased. 
The regular inspector can best look after the general conditions of 
the school, but the department representative can render greater 
service so far as stimulating the work of his own department is 
concerned. The University of Iowa is this year using both means 
of service and the experiment promises well. 

The schools themselves are not slack in their appreciation of the 
service rendered by the University in sending its representatives 
among them. When his mission has been understood the writer 
has invariably received courteous treatment. In most cases a gener- 
ous and, he believes, a genuine hospitality has been extended and 
he has been invited to come again and often. Letters have followed 
him home telling of good results from his visit. There has not 
always been agreement with his views, but in case of disagreement 
there has been fair and frank discussion and that is, perhaps, better. 
Complaint has frequently been made that the schools can not meet 
the University entrance requirements and occasionally one threatens 
to give up the attempt. But it never does. In such cases it can 
usually be shown that if certain changes are made which would 
benefit the school as a whole, the requirements can be met, so that 
here again the University influence is broadly beneficent in its char- 
acter. But generally speaking, the school men recognize the ac- 
credited relationship as a pull from above inspiring pupils, teachers, 
school officials and patrons to greater and more intelligent educa- 
tional activity. 

Ths Chairman : 

H. A. Hollister, Inspector of High Schools, University of Illinois, 
is the next speaker. 

Professor HoivLister : 

If I were to preface my paper by any remark it would be perhaps 
to suggest the regret that it was impossible to forecast what condi- 
tions and what discussions were to precede what is to be presented 
at this time. Had I known for instance what was to be given in 

105 



so excellent form by Principal Bryan of the St. Louis High School 
I might have started by saying, "That is my point of view" and 
gone forward with a more detailed discussion of the subject to be 
discussed at this time. As it is I must present what I have prepared 
on the way, as it were, for the man whose business it is to visit 
high schools has some difficulties which are different from those of 
other lines of educational work. He must learn to adjust himself to 
conditions far different from the one whose work gives him a fixed 
location. Apologies are not in order at such a time as this, but if 
there should appear to be something lacking in the few remarks 
which I have, you will understand that part of the cause at least was 
due to the difficulties mentioned. 

The high school is the expression of a well defined and clearly 
felt need of the community life which first gave it existence. In the 
report of the special committee appointed to draft the first plans for 
the Boston English High School, we find the following statement 
of this need : "The mode of education now adopted, and the branches 
of knowledge that are taught at our English Grammar Schools, are 
not sufficiently extensive nor otherwise calculated to bring the powers 
of the mind into operation nor to qualify a youth to fill usefully and 
respectably many of those stations, both public and private, in which 
he may be placed." Thus as early as 1821 we find expressed 
practically what the public high school represents to our minds today. 
Following through all its history, as one after another of the argu- 
ments for its existence have passed beyond the stage of debate to 
become the settled conviction of the American people, the one domi- 
nant and persistent thing has been this very responsiveness of the 
public high school to the needs of the community life. Always its 
function as a fitting school has been recognized, but only as a 
secondary consideration. 

From its inception, also, its articulate relationship to the elemen- 
tary school has been assumed. In the same thought which conceived 
the notion that the grammar school should represent a direct and 
continuous ascent from the primary school, there came also the idea 
of an upward extension from the grammar school which took form in 
what we are now pleased to call the secondary school. 

Long before the high school, there had existed the college and 
the college fitting academies. The rapid growth of the public high 
school, and the place it has come to fill as a fitting school, supplanting 
largely the work of the old academies, is a matter of common history. 
As the colleges have always supplied the teachers for the fully 

106 



organized high schools, it is but natural that the high school curricu- 
lum should have received its model largely from the college con- 
ception of the work of the secondary school in its function as a 
fitting school. This conception of the fitting school type of high 
school was for some time the dominant one. 

But now it appears that a different idea has come to prevail. 
Just as the grammar school came to be recognized as an extension 
upward of the primary school, and the high school a similar upward 
extension of the grammar school, so it is held that any complete 
conception of a scheme of education must recognize the college and 
university as the extension upward of the work of the high school. 
In other words, the entire educational system springs from the earth 
and grows upward. It is no longer conceived of as something let 
down from above. 

The State Universities represent the latest step in the form of 
provision by the State for this evolutionary progress of education. In 
this they stand as somewhat distinct both in type and in function, 
representing practically again the demands of the larger community 
life for a training still higher than that provided by the public high 
school, and continuous from it. The last decade, even, has seen 
these institutions standing out more and more distinctly from the 
background of the traditional college organization as their peculiar 
relation to the lower strata of public education has been more clearly 
discerned. 

In the various attempts at articulation which the development of 
our system represents, not a few of the mistakes which have been 
made were due apparently to the notion that the unity of the process 
of education is objective rather than subjective. Those possessed 
of this notion have sought unity and complete articulation especially 
by means of continuity of subject matter in the curriculum. This 
has sometimes led to a process of strain together with the feeling 
that there were gaps and breaks in the educational incline, occurring 
oftenest, perhaps, at the points of articulation. 

A more careful study of the psychological basis of unity in educa- 
tion is furnishing us a means for the correction of this difificulty. 
We are coming to recognize the sufficiency of any training for the 
next step in education below the points of necessary specialization, 
which brings into action all the essential mental processes and their 
corresponding motor reactions. If this is given in such a way as to 
lead to the continuous and normal development and co-ordination 



107 



of both the impressional and expressional phases of mental experi- 
ences, growth of power will result. 

Let us carry this idea into a brief analysis of the work of the 
elementary schools. The normal child in contact with nature and 
the social group in which he moves, reacts upon the stimuli thus 
affecting him. Out of these simple experiences come rudimentary 
notions of quantity and form, leading later to the science of mathe- 
matics; of various qualities and behavior in nature and life, leading 
up to aesthetics and ethics ; of likeness and difference in various 
objects in nature and the constant operation of certain forces, lead- 
ing up to the biological and physical sciences ; of certain movements 
in the social order about him, leading up to history and philosophy ; 
and of definite laws and forms of spoken and written language, 
leading up to grammar, rhetoric, logic, and the study of literary 
types. These stimuli and their corresponding reactions furnish the 
opportunity and occasion for acquiring a mastery of the more ele- 
mentary of the conventionalized forms of expression in language, 
drawing and constructive work. 

Briefly this mastery of the elements of expression in its correla- 
tion with stimulation marks the field of elementary education. Thus 
far history and science have been in the language stage, while the 
mathematics have been chiefly exercises in language and drawing. 
The mastery of the art of reading, has, step by step, opened up 
literature as supplemental to observation in furnishing stimuli. With 
all this have come the ability and inclination to observe with clearness 
and comprehension which is gained only when correlated with ful- 
ness and accuracy of expression. 

With some such equipment the normal child, with reasonably 
normal training, will enter the secondary stage of his education. 
Here he may continue his observations of nature and life, supple- 
menting from literature and art in order to verify or correct his own 
deductions. His mathematics he may carry forward into the realm 
of science in order to give it greater scope in the more general ex- 
pression of quantity and relation to be required later. His language 
work will also come to the scientific stage in grammar, rhetoric, 
and the study of literary forms. This may again be supplemented 
and strengthened by the study of some foreign language. 

The expressional side of the work should not be abated; and it 
should offer as many forms as is consistent with the time and means 
available. 

In all of this, whether it require ten or fourteen years of his 

108 



life, the student may not specialize. It will be quite sufficient, so far 
as specialization goes, if he comes out of this all-sided test with a 
fairly definite idea of what he should fit himself for, whether in the 
university or by a direct plunge into the activities of life. 

But what is the bearing of this elementary discussion of educa- 
tional principles upon the question now before us? Simply this — 
that we may get a point of view as to educational unity. Accredited 
schools are articulated schools; and articulation involves first of all 
a clear conception of what constitutes unity in education. The fore- 
going brief analysis gives the point of view for this phase of the 
discussion. 

Whatever it is possible, along such lines as we have here pre- 
sented, for the elementary and secondary departments of our public 
school system to accomplish, with reasonably complete organization 
and normal conditions, should be the prime consideration in fixing 
college and university entrance requirements. 

The establishment of more or less arbitrary entrance require- 
ments will affect the accredited high schools very differently from 
those requirements which are the result of measuring from below 
upward. Experience shows that in either case the high schools will 
use all possible means at their command to reach the requirements 
of institutions with which they seek accredited relations. Where 
the requirements are too high, or where too many subjects are pre- 
scribed, such effort tends to a distortion of the secondary school with 
reference to the elementary school from which it springs. But where 
the second consideration is met, and the requirements are based on 
the average attainment of what we may term legitimate high schools, 
with a minimum of described subjects, such distortion can hardly 
result. In such a case, both the inspector and the supervisors of the 
high schools will know that to secure the best possible preparation for 
college work, the school must preserve carefully the unity and com- 
pleteness of its work with special reference to the elementary school. 

If we grant this contention, then the very best that the repre- 
sentative of the university can do in his work of accrediting schools 
will be to aid in the establishment and preservation of this unity in 
educational work of communities. This all the more because of the 
frequent and numerous changes in teachers and supervisors. 

If by our systems of accrediting schools, we are in any measure 
drawing the high schools away from their close organic relationship 
to the elementary schools, or if we are tempting them to expend 
more than the due proportion of educational resources upon the 

109 



high schools at the expense of the grades, then we are wronging 
both and at the same time doing our higher institutions a doubtful 
service. 

Those of us whose business it is to study this matter in the field, 
are daily reminded of those weaknesses in high school work evidently 
due to bad or insufficient teaching in the grades. Some of the high 
schools even advertise this fact by the way in which their courses 
of study are arranged. One very common evidence of overdevelop- 
ment of high schools is the conversion of the supervisor of a school 
system into a high school teacher. Thus the paid expert who should 
see carefully to all the work of the system is rendered practically 
useless in the particular field for which he is chosen in order that 
the high school course may be brought to the proper standard and 
duly accredited. This is all the more likely to occur because of the 
skepticism common among school patrons as to the real utility of 
purely supervisory work. Such matters as these, while only indi- 
rectly connected with the work of accrediting schools, still demand 
much time and attention on the part of the inspector and should 
therefore form a very important item in any enumeration of results. 

Whatever be the view point of the higher institution, the effect 
of the accrediting system, if conducted with any degree of efficiency, 
is bound to be far reaching in its influence upon the high schools. 
In those States where no provision is made for the special supervis- 
ion of high schools, much that does not strictly belong to the office 
devolves upon the high school inspector. 

In any case, one does not need to have been very long in the field 
to have discovered that the work of accrediting schools calls for a 
thorough training in the fundamental principles of education, both 
theoretical and practical, and that for a man thus equipped it offers 
a field of unlimited usefulness and of peculiar opportunity. 

The; Chairman : 

President A. B. Riker will open the general discussion. 

Pre;sident Rike;r: 

In both the discussion of this morning and of this afternoon it 
has been suggested that the high school is no place to teach religion, 
but it seems to me that there is possibility of our conceding too 
much here. I think these propositions would be accepted by us all : 
First, that the high school is here; and second, that it is here to 
stay ; third, it is a fact we have to deal with ; fourth, ninety per cent, 
of our youth get all the education they will ever get from the public 
school; fifth, if they are ever to get any religious training in con- 

110 



nection with their intellectual training it must come from the public 
school; sixth, the Republic is doomed unless it can maintain good 
morals — I think we would all agree to that ; seventh, in all Christian 
history — I do not refer to Hindu or Brahman history — morals have 
declined when religious conviction has declined. 

Now, if these propositions are true it seems to me that we should 
have some measure of religion taught in the schools. Let me call 
your attention to a well known statement of Daniel Webster who 
when asked at a public dinner, "What is the greatest thought that 
ever entered your mind?" replied, "The greatest thought that ever 
entered my mind was the thought of my personal accountability to 
God," and he was so moved that he arose and left the table. Now, 
that is religion. It is not all of "my -doxy." I do not know that 
it is all of anybody's "-doxy," but I am sure it is the foundation of 
all sound "-doxy," and I think we might go that far in the teaching 
of religion in our public schools. I think we make a great mistake 
in saying that the public school has no mission to teach religion. 
Religion is the foundation underlying Christian morals, and we can- 
not maintain our Christian morals unless we get back on this bed- 
rock of our accountability to God. The Jew believes in God, so does 
the Roman Catholic, and likewise we all agree upon this broad and 
profound fundamental, with the exception of a number of people 
so small as to be unworthy of consideration; and, in my judgment, 
we ought to assume that that much religion should be taught in our 
public schools. We ought to stand together on such a platform 
and with the public schools help to work out a program wherein 
religion could be laid at the foundations of the intelligence and the 
morals of the youth of the Republic. 

The; Chairman : 

Mr. Leslie, from Ottawa, Illinois. 

Mr. LesIvIB : 

Judging by a good deal of the discussion that we have heard, it 
seems that the child should receive his religious instruction in the 
public school, whereas his father and mother get theirs in the church 
and Sunday School. I belong to an orthodox church. It never 
occurred to me, or to my father or mother that it was the duty of the 
public school to teach me religion. We got into the church as best 
we could, in dread of fire and by means of water. Now, I suggest 
to the fathers and mothers that they take care of religious instruc- 
tion. I have a class in Sunday School myself and I would not 

111 



guarantee it to be orthodox. The children ought to learn about 
religion in Sunday School. The parents are to blame if the children 
are not taught. I am surely in favor of all earnest religious teaching, 
but I am not in favor of relieving father and mother nor the 
Sunday School and church of their duty. 

The; Chairman : 

Mr. Charles McMurry of the State Normal School at DeKalb, 
Illinois. 

Mr. McMurry: 

I want to endorse all that was said by the brother. I believe in 
home religion. I am the son of a minister and a minister myself. 
I am active in all such work. I do believe we make a mistake 
in conceding that the school has nothing to do with this work. I 
think we need more religion in the home. We ought to stimulate 
that, and in the Sunday School and church, but the school reaches 
young people that the church does not, and it seems to me we ought 
to get under this great arm of power with the universal opinion that 
it is an obligation upon our people. 

Thi; Chairman : 

Principal Brown, of the Joliet Township High School, will be 
the next speaker. 

Principai, Brown : 

I am willing to concede that the public schools do not teach 
religion at present and have not taught religion through the ages. 
If we accept the teachings of Jesus Christ whose personal life was 
the greatest exponent of religion the world has seen, then we must 
also accept the further statement that the personal life of the teacher 
is the greatest exponent in the school. So I say that the life of 
the teacher cannot but teach religion if he has a religion. We can- 
not teach religion by teaching the Bible or theology. The religion is 
within, and the man or the woman who does not teach religion by 
living it does not teach it at all. "The life is more than meat and 
the body than raiment." 

The) Chairman : 

Professor James of Northwestern University. 

Professor James : 

"What may the public high school do in connection with the 
moral and religious training of its pupils" is the topic for discus- 
sion tomorrow. 

112 



The Chairman : 

The point is well taken. The religious discussion may well come 
later. 

President Blanchard of Wheaton College. 

President Blanchard : 

Mr. Chairman: I was just going to say that if all of our high 
school men were as careful in their administration as Principal 
Brown of the Joliet Township High School this subject would be 
less important than it is now, but when a man who is an habitual 
drunkard and repeatedly comes into his school drunk is allowed to 
draw a salary of five thousand dollars a year for several years and 
retain his position at the head of a great city high school, it is 
evident that all managers of high schools are not like Principal 
Brown. If they were we should not have much of a question here. 
I want to say just a word in regard to the discussion of this after- 
noon. It has been sad to me in one respect because it seemed to me 
that the essentials have been so largely overlooked. With the present 
drift of things in our public life, with the immense expenditures 
for public education, and with the tendencies we find in life all 
around us, it seems to me that the discussion this afternoon has 
been very inadequate indeed. It seems very much like talking to a 
man on a ship that every moment threatened to sink about a pimple 
that there might be on the end of his nose. The pimple might be 
there and should be taken away, but the thing we want is to get 
ashore. I hope that we all of us agree with Washington when he 
said, "We ought never to indulge the supposition that a sound 
morality can exist in any nation without an active Christianity." 
When I think of the thousands and tens of thousands of pupils in 
our public high schools and of the thousands of teachers in these 
schools, and of the Christian homes and churches whence these 
teachers came and whence they derived the moral standards they 
follow in their own lives and teachings, and then when I listen to a 
discussion which seems entirely to omit the very thing which made 
them what they are, I confess I am anxious and I could wish that 
we had more time to discuss this question before us this afternoon. 

The Chairman : 

The hour for closing has come. We are adjourned. 



113 



THIRD SESSION. 



ANNIVERSARY EXERCISES AT THE FIRST METHODIST 

CHURCH. 

Friday, October 30, 8 : 00 p. m. 
Prdsident James: 

The University Glee Club will favor us with a selection. 
Selection by the Glee Club. 

President James: 

The invocation will be pronounced by President W. F. King of 
Cornell College. 

Dr. King: 

Oh Holy and Eternal God, maker and preserver of all mankind, 
giver of all spiritual grace and author of eternal life, be pleased 
to let Thy choicest blessings rest upon us as we gather here under 
the auspices of this University to engage in these hours of celebra- 
tion. We pray thy blessing upon this University in all its depart- 
ments and in all its interests. Raise up for it more of friends ; give 
it more of strength; and we pray Thee to make it more of power 
for good to elevate humanity in the varied departments of life. And 
especially we invoke Thy blessing upon that department which we 
are especially assembled to celebrate. We pray Thee that we may 
appreciate that this department — the Academic — is that which takes 
the youth in their most impressible and moldable period and gives 
them the inspiration for study, the elevation of character and the 
enlargement of soul which is so necessary for their future work. 
We pray Thee that we may more and more appreciate this open 
door to higher education, this opportunity for teacher and parent 
and pupil to co-operate in laying the foundations of scholarship and 
of character. We pray Thy blessing to rest upon this Academy in 
all its interests, upon this Faculty, upon this body of students, and 
upon all the interests that pertain thereto. And especially, our 
Father, we thank Thee for the record of him who has so long 

114 



presided over this institution. We praise Thee that Thou didst 
call him to this great work, that Thou didst give him such a prepa- 
ration for it, that Thou hast so kindly preserved his life in all these 
years for his great service for this institution. We thank Thee 
for this noble life and we pray Thee that it may be continued, that 
the way to him "may grow brighter and brighter, even unto the per- 
fect day." And we pray that Thy blessing may rest upon him as 
he looks back upon the work which has been achieved and as he 
looks forward to the brighter time which is to come for those who 
are to follow. Give him, we pray Thee, Thy benediction. Continue 
his presence with us lo these many years that he may be a blessing 
to this institution and a blessing to Thy church. Let Thy blessing 
rest, we pray Thee, upon all the interests that are near and dear to 
our hearts, upon us who are gathered here from varied institutions 
and various parts of the country to participate in these exercises. 
May it prove profitable to us and may we go home better prepared 
to carry on the work to which we are called. Now, we pray Thy 
blessing upon him who is to address us this evening. Give him 
such a message as shall be profitable to all who hear him, and may 
this occasion redound to Thy glory and to the upbuilding of this 
great cause. We leave us now in Thy hands, praying as Thou hast 
taught us. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, 
thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven ; give 
us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we 
forgive them that trespass against us, and lead us not into tempta- 
tion but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the 
power and the glory, forever. Amen. 

President James: 

I desire to make one or two announcements in regard to the 
rest of the program after the oration this evening. We shall ask 
our friends to keep their seats until the procession has passed out 
again in the order in which it came in. This procession will escort 
Professor Fisk to the Evanston Club. The alumni are requested to 
go to Fisk Hall where they will be received by the Literary Societies 
of the Academy. During this celebration the word alumni is under- 
stood to include every person who has matriculated in the Academy. 
An attempt has been made to reach all the former students of the 
Academy in order to obtain correct addresses so far as possible. Over 
seven thousand people have matriculated in the Academy since it 
was first organized. We have the addresses of something over five 
thousand. We wish to complete the list and we should like to publish 

115 



it some time at our convenience. There is a room in the Academy 
where alumni headquarters have been estabhshed and where it will 
be possible for you to give such information about former students 
as you may possess. 

I desire to call attention to the program for tomorrow. We shall 
try to begin promptly in the morning, and we shall be very glad 
if all of our friends would be present on time. Tomorrow afternoon 
we have our special alumni service. To that we invite all our dele- 
gates and visitors at the hour indicated upon the program. 

We are very fortunate indeed in the presence of the orator of the 
evening. In him we have a man who himself at one time was a 
student in the Academy, a teacher in the Academy, a graduate of 
the College of Liberal Arts of Northwestern University, and a man 
whose career as a lawyer and of late years as a thoughtful legislator 
is one of which we have every reason to be proud. I take great 
pleasure in introducing Honorable Henry Sherman Boutell. 



OUR PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS : THE TRAINING SCHOOL 
OF GOOD CITIZENS. 

Mr. Boutei.1.: 

Mr. President, Fellow Alumni of the Academy, Friends of 
Doctor Fisk : Last month the Principal of our Academy was absent 
from the annual opening of the school for the first time in thirty 
years. His colleagues felt the loss of his guiding counsels and his 
pupils missed his welcoming smile and cordial greeting. For some 
months past his neighbors, too, have watched with friendly solicitude 
for his reappearance among his old associates. To-night his col- 
leagues, pupils, and fellow-townsmen have met together to welcome 
him back to home and friends ; and I esteem it not only a great 
pleasure but a signal honor to extend to you, Doctor Fisk, on behalf 
of this great gathering of your well-wishers, our most hearty con- 
gratulations on your restoration to health and strength, and on your 
return to your chosen labors. But I assure you that we whom you 
now see around you are not the only ones who join tonight in this 
welcome. 

Let me part for a moment the draperies of the years and light 
the tapers of the past. Now, who are those in the distance coming 
toward you ? See, they are drawing nearer ! They come in scores, 
and hundreds, and thousands ! Their faces are illumined by smiles 
of recognition; their hands are outstretched in friendly salutation, 

116 



and their lips are parted with words of welcome. Surely you know 
them now, your old pupils of the last three decades, who rejoice 
with us on this happy occasion. To be able to summon such a 
friendly host is a privilege accorded to few, and to no one outside 
of your exalted calling. The teacher, alone, of all mankind, enjoys 
the long and intimate companionship of youth. And your labors 
are always those of service, help, and encouragement. You have 
your trials and conflicts, but you have the greatest of all rewards — 
the supreme blessing of the sympathy and affection of the friends 
of many years. It was some such thought as this that the son of 
the greatest of English schoolmasters had in mind when he wrote 
the lines to his father in Rugby Chapel: 

If, in the paths of the world. 
Stones might have wounded thy feet, 
Toil or dejection have tried 
Thy spirit, of that we saw 
Nothing — to us thou wast still 
Cheerful, and helpful, and firm ! 
Therefore to thee it was given 
Many to save with thyself ; 
And, at the end of thy day, 
O faithful shepherd ! to come. 
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand. 

As there are so many of the alumni and friends of the Academy 
gathered here this evening, this would seem to be a most appropri- 
ate occasion to review the growth and development of our school 
under the leadership of Doctor Fisk. 

When he became principal, in 1873, the school opened with 156 
regular pupils and eight instructors. The present enrollment is 
512, and the corps of teachers numbers thirty. Doctor Fisk's suc- 
cess in the management of the Academy attracted the favorable 
notice of one of the greatest benefactors of the University, and, 
through Mr. Deering's wise generosity, the Academy possesses today, 
in Fisk Hall, a school house unsurpassed by any secondary school 
in the country in situation, architecture, equipment, and adaptation. 

In 1868, when I entered the Academy, or the Preparatory School, 
as it was then officially denominated, or the "Prep," as it was called, 
and always will be called, by the old boys, the University Catalogue 
of that year, in describing the Preparatory School, contained this 

117 



statement: "The object of the school is to give students a thorough 
preparation to enter the freshman class in the University," and the 
minimum age for entering the school was given as eleven years. The 
original design of the trustees in opening the school was to furnish 
a scheme of studies limited to the preparation of freshmen for the 
University. Today, a pupil in our Academy can fit himself to enter 
any college or technical school in the country, or for a business 
career. There used to be a tendency, that was specially noticeable 
among the undergraduates of the University, to regard the intimate 
connection between the University and the Academy as something 
anomalous, and there were those who even went so far as to express 
the wish that the "Prep" might be suppressed. Of course all idea 
of discontinuing the Academy disappeared long ago, as soon as 
Doctor Fisk demonstrated its power for good; but there are those 
who still feel that it ought to be moved or separated in some way 
from the University. It may help to reconcile these critics to the 
present relation between the University and the Academy to know 
that the founders of our Preparatory School followed the model of 
the most ancient preparatory school in the world — the first school 
for secondary education established in England over 500 years ago. 
In 1386, when WilHam of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, 
founded Winchester College, the first of the long line of famous 
English Secondary Schools, he intended it to be a preparatory 
school for New College, Oxford, which he also founded. So to 
this day, loyal Wykehamites go up annually to Oxford from the 
ancient capital of the Anglo-Saxons. Eton College, also, was 
founded by Henry VI. as a preparatory school for King's College, 
Cambridge. I believe, Mr. President, that you have under your 
jurisdiction no department of greater dignity, honor, and worth 
than the Academy, and I trust that its connection with the University 
will never be broken. This, I am sure, is the wish of all the alumni. 
Our school was patterned after an ancient and honorable model, 
and, under the wise and strong guidance of the present Principal, it 
has attained a reputation for scholarship and training that places it in 
the front rank of secondary schools. Your scholars. Doctor Fisk, 
have gone to all parts of this country, and, I believe, to most of the 
countries of the world, but wherever they have gone they have 
carried with them the influence of your teaching and example as 
a stimulus and encouragement, a guide to high and noble lives. 
And to-night they have all come back, some in the body, but many 
more in the spirit, to bless you. As you look back over the period 

118 



of your connection with the Academy, and reahze the magnitude 
of the results of your labors, and contemplate the affectionate regard 
of your pupils, you must be able to discern the deep significance 
and wondrous beauty of these lines: 

The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benediction. 

When Edward Alleyh in 1619 founded Dulwich College, one of 
the notable public schools of England, he provided in the regula- 
tions that the head master must always be named Alleyn. After 
the lapse of nearly 250 years it became necessary to change this 
rule; so perhaps we had better not try to adopt a similar one. 
Let us hope, however, that it will be many long years before the 
Principal of the Academy of the Northwestern University shall 
have any other name than that of Fisk. 

During the past few minutes I have discovered that some of 
the familiar faces before me are those of my contemporaries in the 
"Prep" thirty years ago. I should like nothing better than to 
embark with them upon some reminiscences of the good old times, 
but I am admonished that I m.ust keep my promise to say some- 
thing of the schools of the future. I can not refrain, however, from 
recalling one incident in the life of the old "Prep" which now 
appears very amusing in the retrospect, but which we did not ven- 
ture to tell until thirty years after it happened. It occurred in the 
reign of the good King Louis, or, in language intelligible to modern 
barbarians, under the principalship of the genial Professor Kistler. 
Our school did not follow Winchester in every detail. The motto 
of the great English school freely translated from the Latin is, 
"Learn, leave, or be flogged." Flogging was never practiced in 
the "Prep," although some of us undoubtedly deserved it, and 
would have profited by it. So the teachers were put to it to dis- 
cover other modes of punishment. Professor Kistler was especially 
ingenious in his methods of enforcing discipline. Now it happened 
that in the spring of 1868 there entered the junior class in the 
middle of the term a pupil by the name of Beans. It was the 
custom for the principal then to call the roll of the whole school 
when the scholars assembled for daily exercises in the chapel. When 
the name of Beans was called for the first time a ripple of merriment 
was audible in the front row of boys. Of course there was no more 
i-eason for our laughing at the name of our classmate than there 

119 



was for his laughing at our names. But such is the perversity of 
boys. Professor Kistler instantly leaned forward in the old pulpit, 
looked at us sternly over his glasses, and solemnly said without 
any comment: "Boys, boys, it's better to be Beans than not to 
know Beans." The loud, hoarse laugh that rose from the upper 
classes at our expense sent the shaft clean home. It goes without 
saying that after the administration of this delicate rebuke the name 
of our new classmate was received with profound and respectful 
silence. But the scholars, as a rule, in those early days were 
extremely well behaved and were zealous to maintain the dignity 
of the school. In my three years at the "Prep" I never saw a serious 
breach of discipline or a flagrant departure from a proper decorum. 
There was good earnest work done under Professor Kistler and 
under Professor Winslow, his successor. 

I recall our outdoor sports and games with special pleasure. 
Evanston was a small village then, and the houses were all some 
distance from the lake, so that swimming, our favorite summer 
sport, could be enjoyed free from the irritating conventionalities 
of city life. The old Davis street pier was our swimming school 
and the boys' most popular resort. I remember that the most 
graceful diver I have ever seen was the son of one of the professors 
in the Biblical Institute. One of our best swimmers is now one 
of the leading physicians of this city, and the boy who always 
seemed more at home in the water than on the land is now the 
editor of a Chicago journal. Our greatest Nimrod is now a doctor 
of divinity. But I must not stop longer amid these cheerful scenes, 
and will only call upon my old schoolmates to bear witness with 
me that among the thrice and four times blessed, must be numbered 
those, who, in the midst of the smoke and turmoil of the conflict 
of life, are able to throw up the windows of memory and look out 
upon the gleaming landscape of a bright and happy boyhood, such 
as the scholars of the old "Prep" enjoyed a generation ago. 

As this celebration is being held in honor of one who has 
devoted his life to the cause of secondary education, and as we are 
honored by the presence of the representatives of secondary schools 
from twenty-six States, we can make no more profitable use of 
this evening than to devote it to the consideration of the function 
of the ideal secondary school of the future. I have some hesitancy 
in speaking on any phase of this theme in the presence of the dis- 
tinguished educators whose discussions today have made this a 
memorable occasion, but possibly the evidence of one whose studies 

120 



and observations have been directed principally to the results ob- 
tained by our educational system may add something of value to 
the testimony of those whose attention has been more exclusively 
engaged with educational methods. In what I shall say I shall 
especially have in mind our public high schools, for already they 
contain over seventy-seven per cent, of the total number of pupils 
in secondary schools, and this proportion is rapidly increasing. The 
old endowed academies, religious and secular, will undoubtedly main- 
tain their position and popularity, but few schools of this character 
will be founded in the future. More and more they will become 
preparatory schools exclusively. In my opinion, however, their 
greatest usefulness will be in acting as pioneers in educational 
reforms. 

The influence of secondary education on the welfare of the State 
has received, during the past few years, the earnest consideration 
of statesmen and social philosophers in all civilized countries. 
Germany has recently demonstrated through her secondary schools 
that men specially trained in these schools for business and official 
life excel their untrained rivals, and she is making her secondary 
schools a powerful agency in developing the Empire and in securing 
a large share of the commerce of the world. A few weeks ago the 
German Emperor in a speech at Cassel where he attended school, 
attributed the success of his administration to his fondness for work 
which he acquired at his gymnasium. Within a few months, Eng- 
land, the last of all civilized nations to establish free public schools, 
has passed an act making appropriations for the establishment of 
a system of free secondary schools. The progressive nations of 
the world now stand committed to the principle of carrying free 
public instruction beyond the elementary grades, and each nation 
is striving to perfect as rapidly as possible the system of secondary 
education best suited to its national characteristics and the genius 
of its people. For each educational system represents national aims 
and ideals. 

What then shall be the ideal American high school of the future ? 
How shall it best serve the needs of the people? National ideals 
change and educational systems must change to conform to them. 
Today we think that the main function of the high school is to pre- 
pare a young man for self-support and for success in business. So 
far as it goes, this of course is a useful function. It is quite natural 
that today we should regard this as the only, or chief, function of 
the high school, for this is a materialistic age and we are a com- 

121 



mercial people. If, however, we look a little way into the future 
can we not discern the desirability, nay the imperative necessity, 
of devoting our public school system to other ends beside those 
which are purely individualistic, utilitarian, and, therefore, tempo- 
rary? Is there not something in the signs of the times which sug- 
gests that we should use every possible agency for instilling into 
the minds of the youth of this nation a holy zeal for the welfare 
of the Republic? And how can we reach the youth of the nation 
more readily than through the public schools? In the future, there- 
fore, our system of free education, while it will do no less than it 
now does for the individual, must do more than it now does for the 
commonwealth. 

This is the era of the triumph of individualism, and in this 
country the exaltation of the individual has been complete in every 
department of life. We see men amass in a few years fortunes 
almost beyond estimate. From the humblest origin men have risen 
to the chief magistracy of the Republic, and from the most obscure 
surroundings men and women have ascended to the seats of the 
mighty. Never in the history of the world have the opportunities 
for individual advancement been so great as they have been in this 
country during the last fifty years. This exaltation of the individual 
has its spectacular and sometimes humorous aspects, the evidences 
of which we shall transmit to posterity in the popular language and 
epithets of the day. Our "mining kings," "theatrical stars," "mer- 
chant princes," "captains of industry," "financial magnates," "politi- 
cal bosses," "legislative czars," "society queens," and prophets of the 
secondary and tertiary state will give to future generations the 
impression that the guiding motto of our age was, "Every one for 
himself and occupet extremum scabies." How has this spirit of 
individualism affected the attitude of the citizen toward the com- 
monwealth? It has certainly nurtured, if it is not responsible for 
the sentiment that governments and all other human institutions have 
been established solely for the benefit of the individual, but that the 
individual owes them no allegiance or obligation. This sentiment, 
if permitted to grow and wax strong, will destroy the nation. Suc- 
cessful national development in the future must consist in harmoniz- 
ing this spirit of individualism with the spirit of devotion to the 
commonwealth, and thoughtful students of social progress are now 
considering how this harmony can best be secured. In the light of 
modern conditions patriotic men are studying anew the principles 
of the old republics of Greece and Rome, which emphasized the 

122 



obligation of the individual to the State. From far-off South Africa 
has come within a few months a most sympathetic exposition of the 
educational scheme of "Plato's Republic" by Mr. Adamson, Principal 
of the Pretoria Normal School. Professor Monroe of Columbia 
College, has recently given us his excellent "Source Book of the 
History of Education in Greece and Rome." In this country public 
spirited men are with increasing frequency exhorting our people 
to good citizenship. These exhortations are protests — not always 
intelligible, but always earnest, against this spirit of individualism. 
Most of them fail to express in what respect the people are remiss 
in the performance of their civic duties. No one will come forward 
and admit that he is a bad citizen. What then is the cause for 
these earnest demands for good citizenship ? Wherein do our people 
fall short of the highest standard of citizenship? Clearly not in 
what they do as conscious enemies of the State, but in what they 
fail to do. In the famous funeral oration of Pericles, the Greek 
patriot gives a fine description of good citizenship as understood 
in the Athenian City-Republic, and the means by which it is to be 
promoted. 

"An Athenian citizen does not neglect the State because he takes 
care of his own household; and even those of us who are engaged 
in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a 
man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, but 
as a useless character; and if few of us are originators we are all 
sound judges of a policy. The great impediment to action is, in our 
opinion, not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is 
gained by discussion preparatory to action." These are ringing 
words and they point out the evil that threatens our Republic, and 
they suggest the remedy. The Athenians looked upon a man who 
took no interest in public affairs as a useless citizen. They were 
active and zealous in the performance of all public duties because 
by education and discussion they became familiar with all the opera- 
tions of the government and were led to regard the service of the 
commonwealth as the most binding obligation and highest honor of 
an Athenian citizen. That many of our citizens neglect their public 
duties is true; but the neglect is largely unconscious and is not the 
result of evil intention, but of ignorance. Indifference to public 
affairs is our national disease; the cure is education. 

In order to determine just what we are to seek to accomplish by 
education, we must analyze this indifference further and see in 
what way it manifests itself. The time has come in the discussion 

123 



of this question of good citizenship when we must be more specific. 
The man who Hstens to an eloquent attack upon the prevaiHng neg- 
lect of public duties and a fervid plea for good citizenship, shrugs 
his shoulders and says: "I obey the laws, vote, and pay taxes, 
am I not a good citizen? What more do you expect?" And the 
orator fails to tell what more he does expect. So, if we would 
make any headway, we must come down to details and show to 
the man whom we accuse of indifference, how this indifference 
works against the best interests of the commonwealth. In my 
opinion, the three results of this indifference which are most harm- 
ful to the State are : First, the unwillingness or reluctance of many 
men to perform the duties of the minor political offices; second, 
the absence of a stern demand for the vigorous enforcement of 
the laws ; and third, the failure of the majority of citizens to partic- 
ipate in the nomination of candidates for office. 

The first result manifests itself most strikingly in the decay of 
our jury system and in the comparative inefficiency of most of our 
municipal governments. There seems to be a wide-spread and deep- 
rooted conviction that George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, 
Thomas Jefferson, and their illustrious contemporaries founded a 
perfect system of government that would work automatically in 
perpetuity. Many of our citizens fail to realize that the State, under 
our system, is a partnership of which every citizen is a member; 
that the policy of the partnership is determined by the majority, 
and that each member should be ready at all times to perform 
whatever duties may be imposed upon him in carrying out that 
policy. Few citizens would decline a seat in the Cabinet of the 
President, or in the United States Senate; but there are only nine 
seats in the Cabinet and only ninety seats in the Senate, while there 
are thousands of local offices whose efficient administration calls 
for the best services of the most capable citizens. 

The second result may be seen in the contempt with which many 
laws and municipal ordinances are disregarded by those who are 
elected or appointed to enforce them. We should take time oftener 
to direct against incompetent and dishonest officials the power of an 
aroused public sentiment manifested in mass meetings and by peti- 
tions. There should at all times be an uncompromising demand 
either for the enforcement of every law or for its repeal. 

The third result is, in my opinion, the most serious of all — the 
most far-reaching and the most productive of consequences at vari- 
ance with the will of the majority of the people. In the opinion 

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of the people of this country the ideal form of government is a 
Republic based on universal suffrage. We must accept Edmund 
Burke's opinion that a free popular government will always be a 
government by political parties. It is clear, then, that the first 
public duty of the citizen is to ally himself with one of the two 
dominant political parties and work for its success. An election, 
however, simply determines which one of two men shall be chosen 
for ofBce. The nominating conventions of the two parties should 
determine which two men from the whole body of citizens are most 
worthy to receive the suffrages of their fellow citizens. Under a 
just conception of our system of government we must consider 
attendance at the primary a duty as important as attendance at an 
election. Why is it then that the majority of citizens fail to attend 
the caucuses, primaries, and conventions? Simply because through 
unfamiliarity with the details of public business and the methods 
by which it is conducted, they are unable to make their influence 
felt. If they attend a caucus, they find the business quickly and 
skillfully transacted by a few men who have taken the time and 
trouble to master its details, while they feel like a man trying to 
read a well-known book in a foreign tongue, or like a mechanic 
trying to work with unfamiliar tools. 

Ignorance, it will be seen, is the cause of the prevailing indiffer- 
ence which manifests itself in the three ways that I have outlined. 
By what agency shall this ignorance be dispelled and replaced by 
an intelligent perception of the honors, rewards, and obligations 
of American citizenship? I say unhesitatingly by the free public 
schools. Let us make our high schools the training schools of good 
citizens. It seems to me that we have never realized what a power- 
ful instrument these schools can be made for the service of the 
commonwealth. We can not expect the children of the elementary 
schools to give much thought to the duties of citizenship. But to 
the pupils of the high schools, during the impressionable age of 
adolescence, when their consciences are keen and their minds are 
rapidly expanding to receive new truths, may be imparted by teach- 
ing and by example lessons in political duty and civic virtue, which 
will make them enlightened citizens active in the performance of 
all public obligations. 

In what way can the high school be made the training school 
of good citizens? In attempting to answer this question, we are 
brought face to face at the outset with a fact that is discouraging 
and one that demands our serious attention, and that is the present 

125 



small high school attendance. The total enrollment in all the educa- 
tional institutions in the country is, in round numbers, 18,000,000, 
or more than 22 per cent, of the population, now estimated at 
80,000,000. This proportion of enrollment to population is nearly 
four per cent, greater than that of Great Britain, our closest rival. 
But the enrollment in all the secondary schools, public and private, 
is only 750,000, while the enrollment in all the higher institutions 
of learning is only 250,000. The ratio of secondary pupils to 
the total enrollment in this country is only 4.21 per cent., and is 
exceeded by Austria, Germany, and Great Britain. Of the 750,000 
enrolled in our secondary schools, "]"] per cent., or 550,000, are in 
the public high schools. Of this number 323,000 are girls, so that in 
this Republic of 80,000,000 inhabitants, with a general system of free 
public high schools, we have in those schools today only 227,000 
boys. Coming nearer home, we find that the elementary schools 
of Chicago have an enrollment of 237,000, while the high schools 
have only 10,300, or less than five per cent, of the total public 
school enrollment. In Evanston there are 3,440 pupils in the ele- 
mentary grades, while the high school has 423 pupils, or 1 1 per cent, 
of the total public school enrollment. A more serious feature, even 
than the small high school attendance, is the small percentage of 
those who graduate from the high school, or even from the eighth 
grade. Last year the graduates from all the high schools of the 
country numbered only 23,786 boys and 42,476 girls. In Chicago 
the eighth grade graduates last June numbered only 9,698, and the 
high school graduates, 1,285, or 13 per cent, of the high school 
enrollment. In Evanston the eighth grade graduates last June num- 
bered 164, and the high school graduates only 44, or less than 10 
per cent, of the high school enrollment. Of these 44, 28 were girls 
and only 16 were boys. 

From a study of these figures it is evident that the great majority 
of public school children do not advance beyond the seventh grade. 
It is also clear, that, if the high schools of this country are to be, 
as they certainly ought to be, the training schools of good citizens, 
the attendance at these schools must be largely increased. In de- 
veloping the ideal high school, we are confronted at the outset with 
this vital question. How shall the attendance be increased ? 

There are several reasons why the high school attendance is 
not larger than it is, and the time has come when we ought care- 
fully to consider the principal reasons and, if possible, devise appro- 
priate remedies for the evil. In the first place, the actual expense 

126 



incident to the high school course deprives many pupils of its 
advantages. Costly books and apparatus and railway fares keep 
thousands of scholars away from the high schools. Books and 
apparatus should be furnished without charge and transportation 
companies enjoying public franchises should be required by the con- 
ditions of their grant to carry public school pupils free, under proper 
restrictions. If there are any who object to these innovations, I 
would ask them to suggest some other means by which our high 
schools may be made free and public in reality, and not in name 
only. The English Education Act of 1903 provides for the free 
transportation of teachers and pupils when inclement weather or 
distance makes transportation necessary. 

But there is still another cause for the small high school attend- 
ance more potent than the one we have been considering. It is 
the lack of desire on the part of the scholars themselves to continue 
their education, even when the question of expense cuts no figure. 
This indisposition is attributable to the fact that their training in the 
elementary schools has not aroused their interest. The pursuit of 
learning has not been made attractive to them. To remove this 
cause, we must change the spirit that animates the whole method 
of instruction in the elementary schools. As we have seen, at present 
the great majority of the pupils leave before reaching the eighth 
grade. The effort of the present system is, therefore, to cram into 
the pupils in a short time as much information as possible in what 
are recognized as the fundamentals of education, but which are, in 
my opinion, the obstacles to true education. The fixed object of 
the elementary school is now to impart information, whereas the 
dominant aim of the school should be to implant and foster in the 
mind of the pupil the love of truth, that is, absolute or intellectual 
truth as distinguished from truth telling. To accomplish this aim 
certain reforms are necessary which will consist not so much in ban- 
ishing old subjects and methods and introducing new, as in changing 
our opinion as to the relative importance of subjects and methods. In 
the first place, our ideas respecting the relative importance of physi- 
cal and mental training should be exactly reversed. More time and 
care should be given to the healthy and normal development of the 
child's body than to the premature development of his intellect. In 
the struggle of life big lungs and a big heart are better than a big 
head. The physical welfare of our children should be intrusted 
to men of the greatest skill and experience, and each school should 
have its physician to watch the children throughout their entire 

127 



course. On entering the school, each child should be examined 
with the utmost care and thoroughness, and a written report made 
to his parents or guardians indicating clearly what special treatment 
or operation, if any, he needs, and wherein he falls short of his 
normal development. His school work, exercises, and play should 
be directed to bringing his body to the most perfect condition possi- 
ble of health and strength. 

Luther H. Gulick, Director of Physical Culture for the Board 
of Education of the city of New York, introduced some time ago 
in the elementary schools of that city what he calls a "two-minute 
setting-up exercise." It consists in deep breathing and the rapid 
movement of different parts of the body. Mr. Gulick has just 
decided to give the high school pupils the benefit of this exercise. 
In speaking of it, he said: "The 500,000 public school children, 
sitting as they do at desks for five hours each day, form the greatest 
sedentary class in this city. To prevent their legs and backs from 
growing ill-shaped or crooked, the 'two-minute exercise' was adopted, 
and it is given three times daily, twice in the morning and once 
in the afternoon." This is a very refreshing exercise, as any one 
may ascertain by trying it, and I hope that it will be adopted in 
all our schools. But does it not seem a pitiful concession to the 
needs of childhood? Six minutes out of five hours to save the 
legs and backs of our children ! Sixty minutes would be a better 
allowance. 

We might make much more use than we do of choral singing 
in all our schools. The Germans first introduced this form of 
music in this country, and it has always formed an important feature 
in all the German and Swiss schools. It was Luther, I believe, 
who said: "A schoolmaster must know how to sing, or else I 
would not look at him." Although music has a moral and spiritual 
value, I wish to emphasize the value of choral singing in the physical 
development of children. A good rollicking chorus is more restful 
and stimulating than any other recreation. I never knew of but 
one teacher who understood and used this form of exercise intelli- 
gently, and that was a teacher who substituted singing for the 
rod in the old Benson Avenue Grammar, in 1867. I suppose every 
public school in the country has a formal singing exercise every 
day. But that was not our teacher's method. Whenever the pupils 
seemed tired or listless, even if it was in the middle of a recitation, 
he would throw down his book, get us all on our feet, and march 
back and forth in front of his desk rolling out in a rich baritone 

128 



the words of one of our favorite songs. We all caught the spirit 
of the music, and even those of us who could not sing joined in 
the general uproar and made a "joyful noise." When the song 
was ended, he would say, as he picked up his book, "Now let's 
see if we can't take a fresh hold." And we did. I don't suppose 
he ever read Plato, and I am sure he never heard of Pestalozzi, 
but he liked boys and he knew the power of a song. Why is it 
that so many American young men sing as though they were 
ashamed to sing? Every one of our schools ought to have on 
its staff of teachers a German chorus leader. Our children should 
be taught to sing with spirit and enthusiasm the great songs and 
hymns of our own and other countries, and choral singing should 
be used as a frequent recreation during school hours. 

A good friend of the children recently wrote, in describing a 
New York play-center, "Where child life is normal the word could 
not have existence. It at once declares the appalling fact that 
space has to be made for play, and that play itself has to be taught." 
An intelligent English observer of our public system gives it as his 
impression that American children have forgotten how to play. His 
observation was confined of course to our large cities. A child 
who, for any cause, can not play, is a sad sight; but the sight of 
whole communities of children who can not play simply because 
they have no place in which to play, is inexpressibly pathetic. Our 
public school system should furnish the children of each school with 
all the play room that they need for all their sports, and buildings 
for games in the evening and during the cold weather. For every 
square foot of ground that is purchased for a school building, three 
square feet should be bought for play room. I realize the expense 
which this will entail, but I am speaking of the ideal school of the 
future, and I hope of the near future. The American people can 
not afford to consider expense in connection with their public schools. 
Our free school system is the most popular institution in the coun- 
try. We believe in making it the best system in the world. New 
York City now spends $35,000,000 and Chicago $15,000,000 an- 
nually on public schools, and we will cheerfully double that ex- 
penditure, if necessary, to bring our system to the highest standard 
of perfection. Now, we must not only give the children an oppor- 
tunity to play, but we must make their games a part of their educa- 
tion. We have not begun to appreciate the educational value of 
games as the English appreciate it. Every man, no matter what 
his age, should have his occasional play time, but healthy boys 

129 



under twenty should play hard every day. Our system of school 
and college athletics must be radically changed. The individualism 
of the age, invading even our schools, has produced trained athletes 
and star players, but has destroyed the spirit of comradeship and 
co-operation that attaches to games participated in by all the scholars 
at once. A system of athletics in which eleven men play, and eleven 
hundred men shout, furnishes, it must be confessed, a one-sided 
physical development for the eleven hundred, even when the eleven 
give such good cause for vigorous shouting as have the elevens 
of the University and the Academy in the last few weeks. In the 
October number of the Atlantic Monthly, Mr. Lawrence Lowell 
shows from trustworthy statistics that the chances for attaining 
distinction in after life of those who have stood high in college 
athletics is less than the average chance for the whole class. He 
attributes this to the character of our system of college athletics. 

On the other hand, we read a few days ago in the press dis- 
patches giving the make-up of the new British cabinet, that Hon. 
Alfred Lyttleton, the newly appointed Secretary of State for the 
Colonies, was better known in the Colonies as a cricketer, football 
player, and all-around athlete than as a politician. When I read 
this I was reminded of a passage in Professor De Garmo's sugges- 
tive and wholly delightful book on "Interest and Education." In 
illustrating his thesis on motor training, he quotes in full from 
"Tom Brown's School Days" the spirited account of the football 
game in which every boy was compelled to play, and in which 
Tom won the approval of Old Brooke, and then he makes this com- 
ment: "This is the training that makes Englishmen. They might 
study Choctaw or Chinese and the mathematics of Ahmes, yet with 
such play they would grow up to be men. Our high and grammar 
school athletics should abandon, or at least subordinate, the col- 
lege type of play, which admits of but small teams of picked players, 
and adopt or adapt those English types that give every boy a 
chance. What has proved so life-giving for character and efficiency 
among an English class, where luxuries would naturally tend toward 
their degeneration, teaches a lesson to modern urban communities, 
where almost every influence tends toward decline in health and 
motor efficiency." 

In the revitalized public school system of the future there will 
be in connection with every schoolhouse and grounds a residence 
for the principal or one of the teachers. The resident teacher will 
be accessible at all times to the pupils and their parents, and will 

130 



have general supervision of their exercises, sports, and games. The 
school will then be a real center of life and light and humanistic 
influence, instead of a sort of factory whose doors and gates are 
shut as soon as work is over. Such a school, under the charge of 
a sympathetic teacher — a real lover of children — will be, in the 
overcrowded sections of our large cities, like the shadow of a 
great rock in a weary land, within whose shelter not only the 
children, but their parents, will find rest, refreshment, and intima- 
tions of the possibility of more complete living. 

We have now considered how the elementary schools may be 
made more interesting and stimulating by giving greater time to 
physical training, music, and games. It remains for us to deter- 
mine whether we can not further increase the interest of the ele- 
mentary scholars in higher education by a change in the studies of 
the elementary schools, or by a change in the relative amount of 
time devoted to the subjects now taught. In my opinion, nature, 
or the external world of sight and touch has the highest educa- 
tional value in the training of children. I am aware that some 
educators maintain that the mother-tongue has a greater educa- 
tional value. But surely they have forgotten their own childhood, 
or they have no children of their own, or they never taught children. 
The child thinks no more about his mother-tongue than he does 
about his breathing. He is interested in what he sees. Every 
man, from his earliest infancy, when he reaches out his hand with 
equal confidence to grasp the moon and the orange and wonders 
why he can not get the moon, to the time when he lays down the 
burden of four score years, as did the greatest intellect of the last 
century, with the prayer on his lips for more light, seeks instinct- 
ively for a solution of the mystery of the wonders and glories of 
the Universe about him. The study of nature, founded on the 
child's instinctive curiosity about the tangible and visible world, 
strengthens naturally the child's love of truth, which is the incen- 
tive to all educational progress. By nature, of course, I mean 
God's nature and not book nature. If a teacher regards himself 
simply as a human syphon for transferring information from an 
uninteresting book into an uninterested pupil, he will find the 
child as unresponsive as a bottle. An entire normal course on how 
to teach nature can be given in two words — Know Nature. The 
man who knows nature will love her and will take delight in 
imparting her secrets to others. In looking over the hundreds of 
books on teaching in the library of congress a few weeks ago, my 

131 



attention was attracted by a small, modest volume entitled "Con- 
fessions of a Schoolmaster." It was published anonymously in 
1839, but its authorship was subsequently acknowledged by W. 
A. Alcott, who did a great deal for the cause of public educa- 
tion in New England. In discussing the inadequacy of the ex- 
aminations of teachers, he says in his Confessions — "Why are no 
pains taken to ascertain whether the candidate for the sacred office 
of teacher is truly in love with teaching? This is the grand point 
after all. If the person has but the love of teaching, every other 
qualification will come in due time. This, to the teacher, is what 
Paul represents charity or love to be to the Christian; the all in 
all." Teaching is, indeed, a sacred office and it should be filled 
by no one who uses it merely as a stepping stone to another occupa- 
tion. We should show our regard for the teacher's profession in 
the tangible form of adequate salaries for competent teachers. 

My mother gave me my love of flowers and animals, and my 
first reading book was Hooker's "Child's Book of Nature." But 
the book of nature that she taught me to use most was the woods 
and fields. When I was in the "Prep," together with my brother 
and a group of other boys of similar tastes, it was our great 
privilege to be brought into delightful relationship with the most 
enthusiastic student of nature and the most inspiring teacher of 
his favorite subject that the country has produced. Doctor Marcy 
whom all Northwestern men will always hold in hallowed memory, 
did not teach in the preparatory school, but he was a friend of all 
the boys who were fond of natural history, and he was never too 
busy to talk with us about the specimens that we brought to him. 
I must recall an incident that shows the interest that he took in 
the pursuits of his young friends, and which illustrates, too, the 
way in which the reasoning powers are strengthened by intelligent 
nature study. In the summer of 1869 my brother and I were try- 
ing to make as complete a collection as possible of the Lepidoptera 
of this locality. We had three of the four familiar species of 
beautiful moths of the genus Atticus, but with all our searching 
we could find no specimens of the Prometheus, although we knew 
that the moth was to be found in this vicinity. We told Doctor 
Marcy about our unsuccessful quest. He at once became interested 
in our search and asked us if we had looked for the larvae or cocoons. 
We had not, because we did not know where to look for them, and 
asked him if he could tell us where to search. He told us that the 
larvae fed on the leaves of the sassafras tree. So in our daily 

132 



scouring of the country within a radius of six or seven miles of 
the "Prep" we found on the lake shore in the village of Winnetka 
a clump of sassafras trees, but, to our great disappointment, we 
could discover no larvae, and we reported our failure to the 
doctor. Go back in the early spring, he said, when the leaves are 
off the trees, and perhaps you will find some cocoons. When we 
revisited the bushes in the following March, we found a few of the 
precious cocoons — for the insect is a rare one — and in a few weeks 
we were the happy possessors of the most beautiful specimens pos- 
sible of the missing species. The study of nature under a teacher like 
Doctor Marcy gives a boy new conceptions of the beauty and har- 
mony of the universe and of the delights of intelligent study. 

What delights can equal those 

That stir the spirits' inner deeps. 

When one who loves, but knows not. 

Reaps a truth from one that loves and knows ? 

Nature study, having implanted or stimulated in the boy the 
love of truth, converts him into a truth-seeker. Upon the strength 
of this truth-seeking spirit will largely depend his future educa- 
tion. Inspired by it, some men will defy all obstacles and undergo 
great hardships in the pursuit of knowledge. Normally developed 
it will induce many elementary scholars to make an effort to gain 
the benefits of a high school course who otherwise would feel no 
such incentive. 

In the winter months tool work should supplement nature study 
in giving to the pupils accuracy of hand and eye and in strengthen- 
ing motor efficiency. 

In short, our elementary scholars must be induced to go to 
school with the same joy and alacrity with which they now leave 
before we can hope to attract them to the high school. 

I have mentioned two reasons for the small high school attend- 
ance, the actual expense to the pupil and the lack of interest 
engendered by the elementary schools, and I have suggested the 
possible remedies. We come now to the third and most efficient 
cause that keeps so many pupils of the elementary schools from 
advancing to the high schools; and that is, the hard necessity 
that compels so many of our boys to become bread-winners at an 
early age. The removal of this cause in whole or in part is a 
serious problem, but one that eventually will be solved in favor 

133 



of the boys. In my estimation the time will come — and let us 
hope that we have to-night hastened its approach — when it will 
be the settled policy of the American people to give to every boy, 
who shall be physically and mentally capable of profiting by it, a 
high school education. Let us see if we can offer any suggestions 
that may help in solving this problemx. The average age of pupils 
entering the high school is fourteen years. The average annual 
net earnings of a boy during the four years from his fifteenth to 
his nineteenth year, the period of high school attendance, is $200. 
Two hundred dollars a year, or a total sum of $800, would give a 
high school training to every boy who is now forced by the neces- 
sity of self-support to lose all the benefits of this branch of our 
free public school system. An ideal high school should have a 
variety of courses and a wide range of optional studies. It should 
fit a boy for commercial business, for college, for manufacturing, 
or for a scientific or engineering career. It is a very short-sighted 
policy on the part of a boy, who can in any way get a trade-school 
education, to give up that training and go to work on the theory 
that he can in that way make more money. In the November issue 
of St. Nicholas, Mr. James M. Dodge, president of the American 
Society of Engineers, has demonstrated by carefully prepared sta- 
tistics the money-earning value of a trade-school education, and 
shows how rapidly the trade-school boy outstrips the shop-taught 
boy. I wish that every grammar-school boy and every father of 
such boys would read Mr, Dodge's article. 

How shall we provide the thousands of boys and girls who are 
eager to obtain a high school education with the necessary $200 
a year? In the first place I would like to suggest to those wealthy 
men who love their country and its institutions, and who wish to 
advance the cause of good citizenship, that a trust fund of $5,000 
will furnish forever a sum sufficient to maintain a boy in the coun- 
try's best training school of good citizenship — the public high school. 
Twenty thousand dollars will enable one boy to graduate every 
year in perpetuity. Five million dollars will provide at all times 
for one thousand boys. 

In the second place, it has occurred to me that in our larger 
cities a certain amount of the work of the municipalities might be 
done by the young men in the high schools who wished to work 
out of school hours and during the holidays. 

In the third place, let me invite your consideration and full 
discussion of the wisdom of establishing high school scholarships 

134 



from the public revenues. So thoroughly convinced am I of the 
inestimable benefits that would result to the commonwealth from 
a large increase in the number of our high school graduates, that 
I believe the State would be indirectly repaid many times over for 
any expenditures which it might make in securing an increased 
high school attendance. The graduates of the Chicago high schools 
last year numbered only 1,285. There ought to have been ten 
times that number. The expenditures for the schools of Chicago 
are $15,000,000 a year. The addition of only $1,000,000 would 
put five thousand more pupils in the "People's University." This 
would be a tax of only 50 cents per capita. Why not supplement 
our park tax and library tax by a high school scholarship tax? 
The last does not differ in principle from the others ; its benefits 
would be as widespread. If, at first sight, it seems to savor too 
much of paternalism, let us not condemn it without reflecting that 
the same objection has been made to our whole public school system, 
to our free libraries, and to our public parks. The American people 
believe in their high schools and are determined to make them 
free in fact as well as in name; and if the remedies that I have 
suggested for the small high school attendance are inadequate or 
unwise, other wiser and more efficient remedies will be found. This 
determination will grow stronger as we realize more fully the great 
advantages that will accrue to the commonwealth from a steadily 
increasing number of members trained in our secondary schools in 
the virtues of good citizenship. The boys of to-day will be the citi- 
zens of the future, and upon the intelligence of its citizens will 
depend the health, and it may be the life, of the Republic. 

Since writing the foregoing opinion in reference to high school 
scholarships I have received a copy of the English Education 
Act of 1903. It gives to the school authorities absolute power 
to provide for scholarships, not only in secondary schools but also 
in the higher educational institutions. In the matter of public 
education England is making up gloriously for lost time. Shall we 
permit her to outdo us who were the founders of the modern free- 
school system? 

It now only remains for us to consider how the course of studies 
in our secondary schools can be altered and enriched so as to make 
it more efficient in training young men for the duties of citizenship. 
It is not necessary for us to dwell upon the fact to which I have 
already alluded, that many of our citizens are indifferent to public 
affairs and neglectful of their civic duties, and that this indifference 

135 



and neglect are the outgrowth of ignorance. It might be a sug- 
gestive ilhistration in this connection to ascertain how many men in 
this assembly know the boundaries of the ward and senatorial and 
congressional districts in which they live, or the names of those who 
represent them in municipal, State, and federal legislatures. Up 
to the present time our schools and colleges have done little to dispel 
this ignorance. The life of the schoolboy and the collegian is still, 
so far as acquaintance with public affairs is concerned, the life of the 
cloister. It should be the function of the high school to prepare its 
pupils for citizenship by making them familiar with the practical 
workings of the government by actual contact with its operations. 
Less time should be given to the theory of government and to the 
study of governments in general, and sufficient time should be taken 
to master the details of our own form of government. Less time 
should be spent by the pupils in the Athenian agora and the Roman 
forum and more time should be spent in the town hall. Practical 
educators will ask how these general ideas are to be carried out, 
and I realize that it is easier to express general views on education 
than it is to outline practicable methods in detail. I venture to sug- 
gest, however, what in my opinion would be a feasible and useful 
method of government study for high schools. In every com- 
munity where a high school is located there will be found in opera- 
tion the four principal forms of government, municipal, county, 
State, and national. Let each school year be devoted to one of these 
departments. Pupils in the first class would study the town or city 
government. It deals with objects with which the pupils are fa- 
miliar, which they see daily, and in many of which they are person- 
ally interested. The condition of the streets, sidewalks, sewers, 
water, and gas depends upon municipal action, and the pupils should 
after observation and comparison petition for reasonable improve- 
ments and additions. The work of the city council and committees 
should be studied. The pupils should examine the ordinances affect- 
ing their school and its interests, see how they are framed, and at- 
tend the meetings of the committee and council when they are con- 
sidered. The mode of city incorporation, the ward boundaries, the 
method of nominations and elections, should all receive attention. The 
city officers and alderman should be invited frequently to address the 
pupils on subjects relating to the welfare of the school. A year's 
intelligent study of municipal government along these lines would 
fit the high school boy to discharge intelligently the duties of any 
city office for which he might be chosen in after life. 

136 



In the same way, the second year should be devoted to a study 
of the county government, the functions of the commissioners, the 
charitable and penal institutions, the courts of justice, and the jury 
system. 

The State government and the duties of the various State officers 
should receive the attention of the pupils of the third year. The 
State legislature should be studied and the senators and representa- 
tives from the district in which the school is located should discuss 
with the pupils measures in which the district is interested. 

In the fourth year the national government should be studied. 
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United 
States should be committed to memory. The various ways in which 
the activities of the federal government manifest themselves in the 
neighborhood of the school should be observed. Here, for example, 
you have not only the Post Office and the Life Saving Station, but 
within easy reach, Fort Sheridan, the Marine Hospital, and the work 
on the Chicago harbor. Under what department are these activities 
carried on? How is the money for their support appropriated? 
These and many other questions relating to primaries and elections 
should be studied in the field, as it were, and not from books. The 
foregoing outline, it seems to me, gives a logical and natural method 
of government study in our secondary schools, and I am confident 
that such study, if faithfully carried out, will develop in the pupil a 
loyalty to the institutions of his country and a natural interest in 
public affairs that will abide with him through life. 

As a preparation for the discharge of the duties of citizenship, 
not only in public but in private life, the high school should give 
its pupils special training in the art of clear expression. I do not 
now refer to public speaking and the graces of oratory which have 
been so successfully taught by the Dean of our School of Oratory, 
who has made his department the leading school of its kind in 
the world. What I have in mind is rather the development of the 
power to express clearly and concisely to others one's opinions on 
familiar subjects. Every teacher will recognize my description of 
the halting, mumbling, monosyllabic responses that he receives 
from many of his scholars in the class room. They need not take 
offense at the description. I have often seen a meritorious meas- 
ure fail of favorable consideration in the House of Representatives, 
simply because the author of the bill was unable to explain its 
merits to the House. And what the House asks for is not elo- 
quence, but audible intelligence. I have seen one of the leading 

137 



business men of Chicago rise to explain a proposition in a con- 
ference of his colleagues and sit down in confusion without being 
able to utter a syllable. Under our form of government and in 
our democratic society, I know of no talent that does more to make 
a man's other gifts useful to himself and others than does the art 
of clear expression. Some are born with this talent, but education 
and practice will develop it in everyone. Follow your tongue- 
tied, monosyllabic boy out on the ball field or the gridiron. Watch 
the force of his gestures and listen to the emphasis of his voluble 
words as he criticises a ruling of the umpire or the unfair play of 
an opponent. Here you have real eloquence, rough and crude, but 
capable of being trained to conventional uses. 

The scholars of each school should be divided into classes of 
twelve or fifteen for daily discussions. I see that some teachers 
smile at the suggestion of daily classes of twelve. But I am 
speaking of the ideal school of the future. At present we shall 
probably have to be contented with a weekly class of fifty. The 
success of the work will depend largely on the subjects chosen. 
In the younger classes the scholars should choose the subject for 
discussion, and it is immaterial what it is so long as it interests 
them and leads them to speak unconsciously. Let it be the last 
football game, or the chances of the home team in the next game 
— anything to induce the boys to talk. Each pupil should speak 
for three or four minutes, and the teacher's effort should be to 
have him speak as naturally and with as little constraint as pos- 
sible. Let the boys get excited if they will over the discussion, 
the more excited they are the less self-conscious they will be. At 
the end of the hour the teacher should devote a few minutes to 
correcting mispronunciations and the misuse of words, but should 
carefully refrain from indulging in too much criticism which will 
tend to discourage the pupils or repress their freedom of speech. 
Unconsciously, little by little, they will be led to discuss rationally 
and quietly subjects of more remote interest. 

In the upper classes the daily newspaper should furnish the 
text for the discussions, which should now take a broader range 
and deal with the progress of the race in all the departments of 
human activity. The educational value of the newspaper has not 
been fully appreciated. In the daily newspaper the pupil will find 
the first accounts of great scientific discoveries, such as the use 
of the Roentgen Rays and the findings of argon and radium. Here, 
too, are portrayed the great events that are making history for 

138 



the future — such as the coronation of King Edward with mediaeval 
pomp and the election of the head of the Catholic church with the 
picturesque and impressive ceremonies connected with it. An ex- 
perienced journalist, who was, by the way, a classmate of mine in 
the "Prep" and the University, to whom I recently gave my views 
on the educational value of the newspaper, expressed the opinion 
that the daily criticism of the newspapers by the high school pupils 
of the country, or rather the knowledge on the part of the editors 
that their papers would be so criticised by the keen minds of the 
young scholars of the nation, would tend to keep the general tone 
of the press clean and wholesome. But this is a subject apart 
from our present discussion. The newspaper mirrors the world's 
progress, and it should be the aim of the high school not to remove 
its pupils from the outside world, but to bring them into intelligent 
contact with the world and thereby prepare them the better for 
the world's work. 

And finally, the high school should encourage its pupils to 
take an interest in the social, religious, and all other institutions 
of their town and neighborhood. Nothing will better stimulate 
this interest than familiarity with the institutions which the pupil 
sees and hears about, but concerning which he knows little or noth- 
ing. Familiarity breeds contempt for contemptible things only, and 
the pupil should be led to regard as contemptible nothing which 
is connected with the life of his neighbors or with the history of 
the community in which he lives. In their study of history the 
pupils should write the history of local societies, buildings, corpora- 
tions, and the like, from their own examinations and from original 
records. Let me give an illustration. Suppose, Doctor Fisk, that 
you should give to one of your pupils for a term's work in history, 
the preparation of a history of the building now known as the Old 
College. Some years ago I heard a heartless Philistine suggest 
that this venerable structure should be torn down. Why, Mr. 
President, I should not have been more shocked if he had pro- 
posed to tear down the remains of the Acropolis or use the ruins 
of the Coliseum to repair the Appian Way. Upon investigating the 
history of this home of sacred memories, our young historian would 
find that the original building consisted of the front half only of the 
present structure, and that it was first erected on Davis Street, 
facing south, at the northwest corner of Hinman Avenue, and that 
it looked rather bare and solemn, painted white and without the 
present porch. He should look up the records of the University, 

139 



and find the resolution authorizing the construction of this build- 
ing, and discover, if possible, the original contract. Perhaps he 
could find the builder or some of the men who worked on it, and 
interview them as to the conditions of labor fifty years ago. He 
might compare the original cost of materials with their present price. 
He would find that prior to 1870 all the activities of the University, 
which then consisted of only two departments, the College and the 
Preparatory School, were carried on within its walls. At the right 
of the front door was the chapel, at the left was the room in which 
the honored head of the present department of Greek literature 
began his labors as instructor in the "Prep," and inspired, as no 
other man ever did, a whole generation of students with enthusiasm 
for the language of Homer and Plato. On the third floor was the 
room of the Professor of Latin, for whom every student of North- 
western, whether he came under his teachings or not, feels the 
deepest esteem and afifection. There he first disclosed to his scholars 
the secret of discovering the true beauties of a great literature be- 
neath the husk of words, and the members of forty classes since 
then have carried away that secret as among their most cherished 
possessions. The building also sheltered Doctor Marcy's museum, 
furnished rooms for the Adelphic and Hinman Societies, and under 
the eaves and in the belfry, homes of several students. Many citizens 
of Evanston owe a debt of gratitude to this building, which they 
do not realize. In the old chapel were cradled three of the great 
churches of the city, the Baptist, the Presbyterian, and the Congre- 
gational. When he shall have discovered these, and many other 
associations that attach to the Old College, the young student will 
appreciate why the old boys hold it in such love and veneration. 

I have endeavored to point out what we ought earnestly to strive 
for in the development of our secondary schools by indicating how 
they can be made a strong bulwark for the defense of the Republic. 
The development of these schools should proceed upon the theory 
that they are maintained, not solely for the benefit of the individuals 
who are instructed, but in large measure with a view to the greatest 
good of the commonwealth. It is not necessary that these schools 
should teach the doctrine of individual liberty and equality before 
the law. These ideas are born in the blood of Americans. Our 
secondary schools should preach the gospel of individual obligation. 
The youth of our country should be taught the love of home and 
neighborhood, and that great virtue lies in the faithful performance 
of the humbler duties of life; that wealth and power and fame do 

140 



not add to the honor of American citizenship and can not lessen its 
obHgations; that the end of education and the aim of Hfe should 
be good citizenship, and that good citizenship does not consist in 
getting wealth but in giving service. The motto of our high schools 
should be, Each for the State, and the State for all. 

When the Athenian youth, having completed his eighteenth year, 
and having finished his education in music and gymnastics, entered 
upon the last stage of his probation for full citizenship, he sealed 
his devotion to the commonwealth with this manly vow: "I will 
never disgrace these sacred arms, nor desert my companion in the 
ranks. I will fight for temples and public property, both alone and 
with many. I will transmit my fatherland, not only, not less, but 
greater and better than it was transmitted to me. I will obey the 
magistrates who may at any time be in power. I will observe both 
the existing laws and those which the people may hereafter unani- 
mously make, and if any person seek to annul the laws or to set 
them at naught, I will do my best to prevent him, and will defend 
them both alone and with many. I will honor the religion of my 
fathers." 

How can we do better than to train the future citizens of our 
Republic to be guided by the noble spirit of this vow ? 

I have said that, in my opinion, the chief function of the private 
academy will be to act as a pioneer in educational reforms. For 
thirty years, under the guidance of him in whose honor we have met 
to-night, our academy has led the educational advance in the North- 
west. Under his leadership it will maintain its position in the 
future, and I should like to see some of the suggestions that we have 
been considering put in practice by him, and our academy made the 
ideal training school for good citizenship. 

In closing, Mr. President, let me express the hope that this cele- 
bration, with its attendant conference in the interests of secondary 
education, will hasten the day when the public high schools of the 
country will send forth annually into the ranks of our citizens half 
a million young men, each of whom will bear in his heart and 
exemplify in his life that spirit of devotion to the commonwealth 
upon which our Republic must stand : "I will transmit my father- 
land, not only, not less, but greater and better than it was trans- 
mitted to me." 



141 



Presidejnt James : 

The College Faculty, at its last meeting, adopted a minute which 
Professor Patten will present. 

Dr. Patten : 

Professor Fisk, in behalf of your friends and colleagues, the 
members of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, I have the pleasure of 
presenting these resolutions which have been adopted and ordered 
spread upon our records: 

Whereas, Professor Herbert Franklin Fisk, D.D., LL.D., has 
completed thirty years of service as Principal of the Northwestern 
University Academy, 

Therefore, Be it Resolved, by the members of the Faculty of the 
College of Liberal Arts, that we hereby express our profound appre- 
ciation of the distinguished services of our honored colleague, and 
present to him our congratulations on his eminent career as an 
educator of youth. 

Under his administration the Academy has advanced to a high 
degree of efficiency and easily ranks among the leading preparatory 
schools of the country. To the six thousand students who, during 
the past generation, have come under his care, he has been not 
only a stimulus to intellectual attainment, but an inspiration to the 
culture of Christian character. By his wise counsel, ripe scholar- 
ship, pure life, administrative skill and sympathy with youth he 
has proved himself a rare teacher and a genuine friend. 

This period of Dr. Fisk's service is nearly coincident with the 
years of the University's greatest growth and expansion. That the 
Academy has kept pace with this growth, and, by effective support, 
has helped to make it possible, is the signal distinction of Dr. Fisk's 
administration. 

Bringing to his position high qualifications, matured by training 
and experience, Dr. Fisk gave to the school, at his coming, a strong 
and quickening impulse. The work of instruction was broadened 
in range and strengthened by new interest enlisted in its support. A 
record of progress was thus early established which has been main- 
tained without arrest or halting. We have but just now greeted the 
cheering pledge of its continuance, in the noble generosity which 
has united with a princely benefaction to the school, a lasting tribute 
to its presiding head. 

For the same period that he has presided over the Academy, Dr. 
Fisk has been associated Vv^ith us in the brotherhood of this Faculty. 

142 



Courteous and tolerant toward dissent, he has stood as the steadfast 
friend of tested principles and high ideals. The University as a 
school of Christian education has been to Dr. Fisk "a master light 
of all his seeing"; and he has not allowed his candle to flicker or 
grow dim. We tender to Dr. Fisk the sincere assurance of our 
esteem and fraternal regard. We rejoice in his return, with re- 
covered strength, to his familiar place, and we most fervently hope 
that the thirty years of fruitful service now completed may be 
crowned with many years yet in store, abundant in happiness and in 
good works. 

Resolved, that a copy of these resolutions be spread upon the 
records of the College of Liberal Arts. 

(Signed) Daniel, Bonbright, 
Robert Baird, 
Amos W. Patten, 
Committee. 
Evanston, 111., October 30, 1903. 

President James: 

We will receive the benediction. 

Dr. King: 

And now may grace, mercy and peace from the Father, the Son 
and the Holy Ghost be upon this service, upon this institution and 
these friends now, henceforth and forever. Amen. 



143 



FOURTH SESSION. 



Saturday, October 31, 1903, 9:00 a. m. 
Pre;side;nt James: 

I think if the friends in the back of the house will come forward 
they will be able to hear very much better. 

I should like to make one or two general announcements. We 
should be glad to have as many of our friends as possible join with 
us this afternoon in the Alumni Celebration. The exercises will 
begin immediately after luncheon. This evening a reception will 
be tendered by the University to Principal and Mrs. Fisk. We 
should be glad to have you all attend and bring your friends. 

This morning, after the presentation of the formal part of the 
program, we shall have a discussion under the five-minute rule, and 
any persons who desire to take part will kindly send their names 
to the chairman of the morning and they will be called upon in the 
order in which the names are sent in. 

Dr. Edwin G. Dexter, Professor of Education, University of 
Illinois, will preside this morning. 

The Chairman : 

We shall proceed immediately to the discussion of the first topic : 



^'WHAT MAY THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL DO FOR THE 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING OF ITS 

PUPILS?" 

The topic will first be discussed by Professor Doan, of the Ohio 
University, at Athens, Ohio. 

Professor Doan : 

In the discussion of this altogether vital question of secondary 
education, the problem namely of the moral and religious training 
of our high school pupils and the method of such training, I shall 
limit my own participation in three different directions. In the first 
place I shall omit from my discussion all reference to the religious 
and shall confine my remarks to the moral training of the high 
school pupil. In the second place I shall not speak with the authority 

144 



of any statistics of adolescence, but rather shall make my affirma- 
tions in the name of common sense. I impose this second limita- 
tion upon my discussion for two reasons. In the first place I can 
make no claim to expertness in the statistics of adolescence, and in 
the second place I am afflicted with a certain treasonable doubt as 
to the value of the statistical method of collecting psychological data 
and especially the data of adolescence. I am sure that on this 
latter point even those who are most indefatigable in their endeavors 
after the statistics of adolescence will agree that the reports secured 
in this way are likely to be depreciated in value by certain natural 
defects or excesses; e. g., defects of memory; excesses of imagina- 
tion ; defects or excesses of expression ; those who reply to question- 
naires are likely to indulge themselves in a certain literary license, 
using for rhetorical effect, certain extravagant forms of ex- 
pression which, unfortunately, do not report precisely the adolescent 
experience intended. These difficulties and others which beset statis- 
tical psychology and especially the statistical study of adolescence 
make it important that the method itself should be used with extreme 
caution. At any rate, I shall not be especially mindful in my own 
discussion of the results of any questionnaire, though I find that 
the conclusions one reaches through the avenue of common sense are 
as a fact and in the main duplicated by the results obtained sta- 
tistically by such enthusiasts as Drs. Hall, Starbuck, Lancaster, 
Chrisman, Coe and others. As to my third limitation I shall make 
no special suggestions as to the method of moral training, though 
in general I shall speak negatively of the text-book method. In 
view of these self-imposed limitations I find myself confronted by 
the comparatively modest task of discussing in a general way ilie 
simple constituents of moral consciousness with special reference to 
the adolescent child and of asking whether a text-book is suited 
to meet the emergencies of the child's moral life during the period 
of psycho-physical regeneration called adolescence. The adolescent 
period corresponds roughly to the high school period of the child's 
education. 

Well, let us ask first what it is that constitutes moral agency. 
This question we may answer in few words, yet adequately, by 
affirming that moral agency is constituted by the self-conscious elec- 
tion of ends. This self-consciousness in one's purposes involves 
several psychic antecedents. It implicates memory, for example, 
and association, and anticipation, and of course self-consciousness 
itself. It is with the last two of these psychological implicates of 

145 



moral agency that we are chiefly concerned: namely, (i) anticipa- 
tion involving self-projection, and (2) that sense of the meaning 
and dignity of life which involves self-consciousness. It is this 
characteristic of self-projection or anticipation, the power, i. e., to 
interpret the otherwise brute facts of past experience in such wise 
as to make them significant and regulative of the future — it is, I 
say, this characteristic of intelligent anticipation, linked with the 
self-conscious sense of the dignity of the agent himself and even 
the eternity of the future he thus anticipates, that seems to me to 
constitute the very essence of moral agency. 

Now let us examine more carefully these characteristics of moral 
agency, and let us as a preparation for such examination free our- 
selves as completely as possible from the rationalistic suppositions 
pre-established in the minds of many of us by an earlier study of 
German ethical idealism. We shall find, I think, that the moral life is 
in a high degree emotional. The doctrine which is still dominant 
in most of our ethical literature is to the effect that the moral life is 
an essentially rational affair; that it consists, e. g., in a self-con- 
scious recognition of a categorical imperative ; or in the rational 
consciousness we have of ourselves as persons in the absolute sense 
of German idealism; in any case it is supposed that we rationally 
recognize a duty to Nature, or to God, or to what not. Indeed I 
observe a tendency in certain quarters to ascribe to the adolescent 
child this rational and self-conscious insight into the demands of his 
moral life. Now it is undoubtedly true that a rational element is 
involved in ethical reflection; indeed this cognitive element is impli- 
cated in all self-conscious thinking. Nevertheless I think it will 
be found that on occasions of real moral crisis the emotions play a 
much larger part than reason in determining the outcome of such a 
moral emergency. The moral agent ordinarily conceives his life, his 
person, his ends emotionally. His moral decisions, though they may 
be attained with a certain exhibition of rationality, are invariably 
executed under the solicitation of some fine moral emotion. Indeed 
that very self-consciousness which we have seen is so indispensable 
to the moral life is in the last analysis an emotional affair. It is 
that more or less habitual feeling-tone which attaches to certain 
of the agent's experiences ; it is his sense of emotional warmth in 
the presence of certain data which, for one reason or another, have 
taken on a personal significance for him. His self-consciousness is 
essentially the agent's emotional attitude toward the events of his 
life. Thus the person of German idealism, however rational it may 

146 



be with respect to its ultimate content, is with respect to its daily 
significance emotional in a high degree. Without this emotional 
element it would be no more significant a self-consciousness than 
any of the non-emotional processes commonly regarded as apart from 
self-consciousness. I predict that the ethical theory of the future 
will examine more and more vigorously the element of rationalism 
heretofore assumed to be the very basis of ethical functioning and 
will find on the contrary that the average man just because he in 
no respect lives a highly rational life, proceeds with his ethical 
processes with a relatively naive and consequently emotional mo- 
tivity. Emotionalism rather than rationalism will be found to be 
the prevailing motive of the average moral consciousness. It is 
true in general that a defect of rational insight is accompanied by 
an excess of emotional activity. 

Now if it is true of the average adult life that its moral pro- 
cesses are in large measure emotionally induced, how much more is 
this the case with the child and its often serious paucity of life 
experience. At any rate the reflections so far suggest the main 
thesis toward which I have been working. The thesis is this : The 
moral life, the ethical aspirations of the child especially in the period 
of adolescence are highly emotional and unreflective. The thesis 
put negatively is this : The average child of high school age is 
not fitted and has no need for systematic training in the laws of 
righteousness and obliquity. The child's very consciousness of his 
self — this self-consciousness that becomes so rampant during adoles- 
cence — is deeply diffused with emotional coloring. The moral life 
of the child is not primarily intellectual or reflective. It is on the 
contrary almost invariably and in a high degree emotional. The 
ends which the child elects, while to be sure they do inevitably look 
toward the future, are themselves selected with emotional naivete, 
though the egotism of adolescence often leads the child to announce 
his emotional decisions with a brave blare of allegedly rational 
trumpets. It is the peculiar characteristic of adolescence that the 
wonderful impetus given to the growth of his neural processes both 
as respects cell-centers and as respects association fibers confronts 
the child on the psychic side with portentous interrogations, yet 
really he has no more data for the solution of these problems than 
he had previous to adolescence. The inevitable result is a tremend- 
ous emotional strain back of which nevertheless is no real increase 
of actual intelligence or power of reflection. The emotional strain 
is evidently the outcome of demands on the part of the neuroses 

147 



which in the absence of real fulness of life-experience the psychoses 
can not supply. Neither as respects its sense of self-dignity nor 
as respects its ends, is the child's real ethical organism more deeply 
reflective, though it is measurably more emotional, than it was 
previous to adolescence. It is the self-contradiction between the 
child's emotional demands and his actual assets in point of life-ex- 
perience that constitutes the tragedy of adolescence. It is not really 
possible, as some seem to have supposed, to prepare the child in the 
preceding period of its development for the marvelously liberal, moral 
and spiritual aspirations characteristic of the adolescent period. It is 
only in the latter period that the child undergoes that psycho-physical 
expansion which makes its ethical yearnings possible. The puzzling 
ethical, social, and religious questions the child will often ask dur- 
ing the period antecedent to adolescence are mere affairs of its 
curiosity. These pre-adolescent questionings do not touch the child's 
life vitally. They appeal not to his deeper emotions but only to the 
superficial emotion of curiosity. Every one who is familiar with 
child-life knows how easy it is by the employment of a certain 
adroitness to turn the child's attention from a question one is either 
unwilling or unable to answer by substituting therefor another ques- 
tion equally attractive to the child-mind. Now all this is changed 
with the adolescent. His questions though not verbally deeper are 
psychologically more penetrating than in the preceding period. He 
may not by any adroitness whatsoever be turned from these search- 
ing inquisitions. He has become aware of the real issues of life. 
And yet just because he never before has asked his questions with 
just this adolescent motif he has collected no data for their solution 
and indeed could have collected none. The child undergoes a neural 
expansion which in the absence of any sufficient data of life-experi- 
ences becomes represented on the psychic side by a tremendous 
emotional expansion. 

With this main thesis in mind, viz., that the moral life even of 
adults and especially of the adolescent child is highly emotional, let 
us turn now to our main problem. Ought we to make provision for- 
the moral training of our high school pupils? I think we may 
agree at once upon certain propositions growing out of the preced- 
ing discussion, (i) Adolescence makes the moral training of the 
child an urgent necessity. (2) This training should proceed with 
all possible expedition. Yet, (3) — and this is altogether the most 
important point — this training in the very nature of the case must 

148 



proceed slowly. The child needs moral training, and the sooner it 
can fortify its life ethically the better, yet just because the intelligent 
understanding and solution of life-problems requires an abundance 
of life-experiences it is inevitable that this necessity of moral train- 
ing should exceed by many years the entire high school period. 
Indeed it is not primarily in the high school but only later "out in 
life" that the child attains many of those experiences of manhood 
which will either fortify or undermine the aspirations and answer 
either negatively or affirmatively the pregnant questions of adoles- 
cence. Let us agree at once then that however significant the begin- 
ning made in the high school training of the child's moral sensi- 
bilities it must, in the nature of the case, be only the initial stage in 
his ethical career. I personally have an exceeding faith in the 
ethical function of the high school, yet I do believe that the present 
tendency is to overestimate the moral insight, if not the moral 
aspirations of the high school pupil. 

Admitting then that the high school in any case can not complete 
the child's moral training, yet insisting that the adolescent, ethical 
emotions of the high school pupil supply excellent soil in which may 
be planted seed that later will yield a luxuriant growth and attract- 
ive florescence, we may now turn hastily to the question how the 
high school may implant and cultivate these moral ideals. And 
let us inquire first whether the child may be taught ethics in a 
formal way, i. e., with the distinct agreement between pupil and 
teacher that ethics is a part of the school curriculum. We may 
say in general that there are two kinds of formal ethics : speculative 
and practical. In speculative ethics the Kantian and Hegelian 
tendencies are of course the more prominent. Practical ethics in 
turn is of two sorts : evolutional ethics and Christian ethics. Now, 
let us inquire briefly whether the adolescent child may be introduced 
formally to any one of these several types of ethical theory. 

And first we may repeat a general point already made in another 
connection, viz., that the highly emotional character of the child's 
ethical sensibility and the comparative absence from his ethical 
processes of any really vital data in the way of penetrating life- 
experience — all this would suggest in advance of any special dis- 
cussion that little, if any, formal or systematic training would be 
effective in forming the child's moral character. Whether this pre- 
supposition is supported by a more minute examination of the 
child's ethical possibilities we have now to inquire. 

I think we may say at once that it is neither competent nor 

149 



necessary to train the adolescent in speculative ethics. The child 
really has no problems which are in a deeply rational way specula- 
tive — notwithstanding the convictions he himself may possibly have 
to the contrary. With Kant's categorical imperative and noumenal 
world he has no real concern. Nor can he be touched vitally by an 
appeal to Hegel's self-conscious spirit recognizing its oneness with 
Absolute Spirit. Theoretical ethics simply can not be stated, no 
matter how popularly, so as to be available in the moral life of the 
adolescent child. In the presence of such speculative assaults upon 
his life the child's mind would be turned constantly toward the 
specific, the concrete and living problems, the momentary issues of 
his own life. To call this life a person dominated by a categorical 
imperative and to be lived outside the realm of natural causation — 
all this is of no avail, for to him his life is on one side essentially 
emotional and on the other quite concrete and on both sides relatively 
unreflective. 

Well, then, shall we teach the child practical ethics? 

Is it possible and desirable to teach the child evolutional ethics 
as some writers seem to suppose? In the first place I know of no 
text-book written from the evolutional point of view not altogether 
beyond the intellectual range of the average high-school pupil. In 
the second place I have a deep conviction that the evolutional for- 
mula itself, even in its indisputably valid application to certain phases 
of our moral life, is nevertheless unfitted to meet the comparatively 
simple, yet essentially idealistic needs of adolescence. It is only in 
its purely biological phases that the development theory appeals 
to the explicating understanding of the high-school age. The 
ethical consequences growing out of biological evolution, i. e., the 
duties of self-preservation, of species-preservation and of organic 
happiness — these duties the child needs not to be taught; these mat- 
ters may safely be put in charge of his race-instincts. For the 
rest, where the child's more ideal ethical problems are concerned, I 
am convinced that the psycho-physical condition of the adolescent 
is so unstable, really so poverty stricken, v/here real life-content is 
concerned, that it would be positively harmful to propose evolutional 
solutions of these idealistic problems. It is only later, as it seems 
to me, when the period of adolescence is safely passed and the 
child has become capable of interpreting natural processes idealis- 
tically that one may safely submit his ideals to evolutional interpre- 
tation. The child's problems in this high-school period are largely 
sexual, social, and religious; and surely he is not yet prepared in 

150 



point either of intelligence or of experience or of fineness of feeling 
to interpret idealistically the evolutional conception of reproduction 
or the evolutional doctrine of society and of God. The adolescent 
child himself is likely to be suffused with a sense of the poetry of the 
sex-relation and the supernaturalness of his social and religious 
aspirations. Evolutional naturalism, however idealistically it may be 
interpreted by a maturer intelligence, is foreign to the needs of his 
adolescent understanding. Natural processes can not be writ large 
enough to serve the high purposes of adolescence. 

And what shall we say of Christian ethics ? Let me affirm at once 
that I find myself moved by an urgent enthusiasm whenever adoles- 
cence and Christian ethics are mentioned in the same connection. 
It is here, if at all, that our discussion will become hospitable to the 
formal ethical training of the child. His emotional needs, his con- 
crete problems and purposes are eminently suited to the ministrations 
of a sane, Christian, ethical culture. Yet I cannot speak hospitably 
of the text-book method even here. All the texts that have yet been 
written with the object of dealing with juvenile, Christian ethics 
seem to me to be afflicted with either one or the other of two faults 
rendering them useless for the high school purpose.^ 

They are often so simple as to present no content with which 
the child is not already fairly familiar. Such texts the child will 
learn doggedly and without enthusiasm; for the adolescent resents 
nothing so keenly as an affront against what he regards, albeit 
erroneously, as his fine maturity of insight into and great depth of 
concern with the ethical problems of life. He feels he has put away 
childish things, and so is affronted if one undertake to teach him, 
e. g., kindness to animals by the recital of "childrens' stories." Or 
else on the other hand the texts in Christian ethics are so advanced 
as to be rather doubtfully serviceable even in college classes. The 
danger in this latter case is two-fold. Perhaps the child will learn 
its headings and paragraphs by rote.^ Yet if there is any one 
time and any one discipline wherein rote-learning is a barren waste 
it is the ethical discipline of adolescence. Or else the pupil will 
be made too introspective. Yet during the period of adolescence with 
its emotional instability introspection should be avoided as a moral or 
spiritual pestilence. It is not the function of the high school period 



^ And indeed I feel that this unfitness is likely in the nature of the case to afiSict 
any possible text-book in Christian ethics designed for the use of the adolescent. 

' And too often the teacher's own moral tact will be too blunt to detect this practice 
or recognize its perniciousness. 

151 



to produce either precocious saints or premature philosophers. The 
child's introspection of its own processes, such as it is and such as 
they are, must be healthily directed and above all under the domina- 
tion of a pure, sane personality upon the part of the teacher himself. 

Shall we then make no attempt to touch the moral side of the 
high school pupil, to quicken him into moral life? Does this func- 
tion lie wholly in the home, the church and the state ? I personally 
feel on the contrary that the processes of both primary and second- 
ary education should aim largely if not exclusively at the production 
of efficient moral agents. This ascription of ethical function to the 
school does not however implicate the text-book method of teach- 
ing morality. The teacher may summon to his aid many other 
effective instruments of moral culture. There is, e. g., the person- 
ality of the teacher himself. It is common in these days to say 
that the adolescent has passed out of the imitative stage of mental 
development, and to affirm also that he is no longer amenable to 
authority. All this is in a large measure true, yet it is peculiarly 
characteristic of the adolescent that in its ethical aspects his con- 
sciousness is by necessity imitative of moral excellence in another. 
He is open not to the formal ipse dixit of his teacher in the matter 
of moral duties; yet he is peculiarly susceptible to the unconscious 
authority of a strong and healthy personality. All this results from 
the fact that he really has no sufficient data himself on which to 
base independent ethical conclusions. Thus I say that the person- 
ality of the teacher is one of the instruments of ethical culture.^ 

For the rest he has at his easy command all the richness, all the 
glowing concreteness of the ethical problems exhibited and naturally 
because directly solved in the narratives of our best literary classics.'' 
If only we can wholly avoid the tendency, which fortunately has 
never been more than slight and episodic, to introduce morbid litera- 
ture into the high school course in English, we have in the fresh- 
ness and sanity of the ethical element in our literature an altogether 
wonderful and virile instrument of ethical culture. This force com- 
bined with the opportunities for ethical training presented in biog- 
raphy and history — and all reinforced by a vigorous idealizing per- 
sonality on the part of the teacher using tactfully every problem 
of school discipline as a means of social and civic instruction — should 



^ Perhaps I may remark, parenthetically, that I am not sure it is a distinct gain 
when the high school teacher is an extravagant enthusiast on adolescence. 

2 I have often thought that a sort of ethical text-book might be prepared on the basis 
of ^English classics commonly taught in our high school, an explicit though unspeculative 
attempt being made to exhibit the moral situations in these classics. 

152 



afford sufficient positive ethical training. This positive training 
supplemented negatively by pursuits^ designed to detract the child's 
mind from his pulsating, overstraining, moral and spiritual sensi- 
bilities — this in most cases will prove sufficient to meet the emer- 
gencies of the high school period. 

The Chairman : 

Professor Coe, of Northwestern University, will continue the 
discussion of this same topic. 

Professor Coe: 

What may the public high school do for the moral and religious 
training of its pupils? I take for my special topic the religious 
aspect of this question. 

THE PRESENT SITUATION. 

From inquiry recently made among the accredited schools of 
Northwestern University — a group of schools that may be regarded 
as fairly typical — it appears that the general practice in regard to 
moral and religious training in high schools is about as follows: 
With rare exceptions, no text-book of morals is used, and principals 
have little faith in such books.^ Little formal instruction in morals 
is given in any way, but most of the schools employ one or more of 
the following means with the deliberate purpose of training the char- 
acter:^ (i) The personal character and example of the teacher; 
(2) the tone of school organization (study, sports, discipline) ; (3) 
attention to moral lessons and ideals in literature, history, etc. ; (4) 
talks before the school by the principal or others ; ( 5 ) private talks 
with individual students, particularly those who have to be disci- 
plined. 

The usage in respect to religion is more varied. No formal or 
dogmatic instruction is attempted, of course, but in thirty-six per 
cent, of the schools religious interpretations are given in the study 
of literature, history and science. Where the reading of the Bible 
is not forbidden by State or municipal law, practically all the schools 
have Bible reading,* sixty-five per cent, of them have prayer (gen- 

^ I refer, of course, to manual and domestic training, personal discussions with the 
child as to his plans for the future, the encouragement of games, normal athletics, etc. 

^ Being requested to suggest improvements, only eight out of eighty-four respondents 
expressed a desire for any formal teaching. 

^ In response to the question, "What specific instruction or training in morals is 
given apart from the text-book work?" Nineteen of my respondents replied simply 
"None." This may mean either that no effort is made to train character, or that such 
effort is not "specific." 

* Cf. Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1896-97, p. 217 1, 

153 



erally the Lord's prayer only), and a few have the singing of sacred 
songs. In at least three cases the Bible is studied as literature or 
history. Nine principals desire to have it so studied, and five would 
like to introduce some non-sectarian religious teaching. Most of the 
remaining suggestions for improvement concern the more thorough 
use of existing methods, improvement in the character^ of teachers, 
and closer relations between the school, the home and the church. 

How effective these methods are in the development of character 
cannot be shown by statistics. The output of manhood cannot be 
measured as we measure the output of a cornfield or of a factory. 
But I do not see how anyone who is in close touch with many of 
our teachers can approve the sweeping denunciations of our State 
schools that have been uttered during the last few months. With, 
possibly, a few exceptions, these schools seem to be organized and 
administered with a distinct moral purpose in view, namely, the 
preparation of the pupil to discharge his obligations as a member of 
society. In a majority of the schools, comprising most of those 
outside the large cities, the spirit of religion seems also to be pres- 
ent.^ All in all, our public school system, in spite of its defects, 
is one of the chief moral and spiritual strongholds of the nation. 

It is not to be supposed, however, that we cannot strengthen 
that stronghold — not, indeed, by tearing away its ancient founda- 
tions, but rather by building upon the stones already securely laid. 
I shall offer a suggestion or two regarding the religious influence 
of our high schools. If there is a dominant opinion on this subject, 
it is as follows: That any religious training whatever is certain to 
be sectarian, and hence repugnant to our laws. Our schools, there- 
fore, tend to be not only non-sectarian, but also non-religious.* 
The underlying cause of this opinion and this tendency is clearly 
not the irreligion of our people, but simply the rivalry of sects and 
creeds. 

IS THIS SITUATION I^INAIv? 

That this is not a final solution of the problem, but only a tempo- 
rary makeshift, is indicated by three sets of facts, the first sociologi- 
cal, the second pedagogical, the third religious. 

* No doubt many teachers feel, as Tompkins says, that the whole tone of correct 
teaching is a religious tone. "Hence religion is already in the course; not as one of 
the subjects of instruction, but as a pervasive force through all subjects. If the public 
school cannot add religion to its course, there is nothing to prevent the teacher from 
spiritualizing education into religion." — (Arnold Tompkinsr The Philosophy of Teaching, 
Boston, 189s, pp. 271, 273.) 

^ See address by C. H. Thurber: Religious and Moral lEducation, etc. Proceedings 
of the Religious Education Association, Chicago, 1903, p. 124. 

154 



The growth of popular government and particularly of modern 
cities is compelling us to ask what our schools can do for the moral 
health and progress of society. In view of the historical relation 
of religion to social health and progress, we are obliged to face from 
a new angle of vision the question whether the schools can fulfil 
their social function if they ignore religious culture.^ 

Again, psychology and history are making it certain that man 
is essentially a religious being. As a result, our educational philos- 
ophy, which requires the training of the whole personality, should 
include religion in general education. If this demand be just, no 
part of our educational system can properly be indifferent toward 
religion.'' 

Finally, the American people is developing a sense of spiritual 
unity which softens our religious differences. To find our own 
human nature in our neighbor, and to appreciate his beliefs and 
modes of worship are growing easier. Already religionists of every 
class are accustomed to co-operate in matters pertaining to the higher 
interests of society. There is, in fact, a general religious conscious- 
ness, as well as a general moral consciousness. Scarcely any of our 
citizens are opposed to religion, and, though many are indifferent, 
religion in a broad sense is approved by practically the whole people. 

These things are tending to reopen the question of the relation 
of State schools to religion. It will be useless to reopen the question, 
however, unless we are willing to recognize established principles. 
Not all the ground is in dispute. Let us therefore ask where the 
debatable ground begins. 

the; debatabIve; ground defineid. 

I. The American educational system includes three institutions, 
the family, the church, and the school, and the functions of these 
three are not interchangeable.' It is agreed that at least most of 
religious training, and much of moral training, belong to the home 

^ See article by lyevi Seeley: "Religious Instruction in American Schools," EJd'l Rev. 
15:121. Being asked, "Is religion necessary to a properly developed character?" ig6 out 
of 202 persons in various professions answered unqualifiedly "Yes," and only one 
unqualifiedly "No." Being asked further whether religious education is necessary to 
good citizenship, 156 out of 193 answered "Yes," and 11 "No," the remainder giving 
qualified answers. To the question, "If so, ought the state to provide it?" 85 out of 
189 said "Yes," 64 "No," and 40 gave qualified answers. 

^ See addresses by Professors Coe and Starbuck on "Religious Education as a 
Part of General Education" in Proc. Relig. Ed. Assoc, Chicago, 1903; see also reference 
to President Butler in the next section. 

^ See article by Nicholas Murray Butler: "Religious Instruction in Education," 
Ed'l Rev. 18:425, or the same in Principles of Religious Education (N. Y., 1900), pp. 
173-191. 

155 



and the church. The debated question is whether the school has 
any religious function at all, and where its moral responsibility 
begins and ends/ 

2. The separation of church and state is to be complete and 
inviolate. This is agreed upon. As to the application of the prin- 
ciple, however, there is conflict and confusion. Separation of church 
and state is by some understood to mean or imply the complete 
exclusion of religion from state functions; by others merely the 
exclusion of sectarian or partisan religion therefrom. The most 
celebrated legal decision concerning the relation of the state schools 
to religion is that of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, and this 
decision has been largely misunderstood. The court held that read- 
ing the Bible in the schools, even without comment, constitutes 
sectarian instruction, but it also held that there is much in the Bible 
that is not sectarian, that much of it has great historical, literary, 
and moral value, and that such parts may be used in the schools. 
Further, the court held specifically that the schools may give instruc- 
tion in religious beliefs that are held in common by all religious 
sects, for instance, "the existence of a Supreme Being, of infinite 
wisdom, power, and goodness, and that it is the highest duty of 
all men to adore, obey, and love him."" 

3. The general theory of education recognizes a distinction be- 
tween education and instruction. Instruction is addressed to the 
intellect, whereas education has reference to the development of the 
whole personality. Every thoughtful teacher realizes that his work 
reaches beyond the intellect into the region of the feelings, the ideals, 
the character. Nevertheless, whenever the relation of the state 
school to religion is under discussion, there is a tendency to identify 
education with formal instruction. It is unwarrantably assumed 
that training in religion is the same as giving formal instruction in 
religious beliefs. The opposition to religion in state schools rests 
chiefly upon this unwarranted assumption.^ 

I would hesitate to call this a debatable question if I did not find 

^ One principal writes: "We have so much to teach, and so short a time in which 
to teach it that I am glad to exclude moral training [except, of course, that which is 
merely incidental to all work]. That is a duty which the church and the home have 
no right to shift to the school." Another principal believes that a school that gives 
only incidental training in moral and none in religion is good enough. "I believe," he 
says, "in leaving a little something for parents to do." 

^ See Report of the Commissioner of IJducation, 1888-1889, Vol. i. pp. 629-631. 

^ This view underlies, also, the curious argument of Daniel Greenleaf Thompson in 
favor of explaining the different systems of doctrine and inviting pupils to choose for 
themselves!- — -(Articles on Science in Religious Education, Pop. Sc. Monthly, 30:351 and 
4SI-) 

156 



men eminent in education making this assumption even in the face 
of the accepted general theories of education. The argument of 
Commissioner Harris, for example, is to the effect that instruction 
in the dogmas of Christianity as well as ceremonial worship should 
be separated from the schools, and this he regards as the exclusion 
of religious education.^ I do not find in his paper any recognition 
of the possibility that the spiritual life as well as the moral life 
may be promoted through the tone of the instruction and organiza- 
tion, even in the absence of formal instruction in moral principles 
and religious beliefs. Our third question, then, is whether the relig- 
ious side of the personality can be nurtured in the school without 
formal instruction in religious beliefs. 

A PROPOSAI. TOWARD A S0I.UTI0N OF THK PROBLEJM. 

The true answer to these three debated questions seems to me to 
be this : First, that religious training can be given without formal 
religious instruction; second, that such religious training, when it 
expresses the general religious consciousness of the people, does 
not violate the principle of non-sectarianism; third, that the school 
must to this extent co-operate with home and church if our three-fold 
educational system is to be a real system rather than inharmonious 
patchwork. 

1. Whatever be the place of dogma or philosophy in a complete 
religious training, a part, and a large part, of such training is re- 
ceived through other means. The atmosphere of the home, the 
unformulated standards of one's associates, the influence of a strong 
personality — any one of these may water or wither the religious 
impulse. The school not only can, but does, and must exert some 
kind of influence with respect to religion. That influence may be 
positive or negative, but it is there as surely as personality is there. 
The really fundamental question, after all, is not. Shall we exclude 
religion from the schools? but. What kind of religious influence 
should be exerted by schools that belong to the whole people ? 

2. Is it possible for such influence to be other than sectarian? 
Archbishop Ireland answers that religion cannot possibly be taught 
in a non-sectarian form. What does not bear on its face the stamp 
of Catholicity, he says, "is Protestant in form and implication, even 
if it be Catholic in substance."^ He maintains, further, that morals 

^ See addresses by Commissioner Harris and Professors Pace and Coe, with dis- 
cussion of the same, in Proc. N. IJ. A., 1903. Mr. Harris's address is also printed in 
5d'l Rev., Oct. 1903, p. 222. 

^Address on State Schools and Parish Schools, Proc. N. JEJ. A., i8go, p. 179. 

157 



cannot be taught without the positive principles of rehgion which, 
he remarks, give them root and sap. The outcome of the arch- 
bishop's logic is that the state schools must refrain from inculcating 
morals altogether, or else teach sectarian religion ! 

Bishop Spalding, on the other hand, opposes this position. He 
says, "Not for a moment should we permit ourselves to be deluded 
by the thought that because the teaching of religious creeds is 
excluded, therefore we may make no appeal to the fountain-heads 
which sleep within every breast, the welling of whose waters alone 
has power to make us human. If we are forbidden to turn the cur- 
rent into this or that channel, we are not forbidden to recognize the 
universal truth that man lives by faith, hope, and love, by imagina- 
tion and desire, and that it is precisely for this reason that he is 
educable."^ The bishop further says that, though the philosophical 
basis of morality is the being of God, nevertheless morality can be 
taught without assigning its philosophical grounds (p. 148). 

I submit that Bishop Spalding's view rests upon sound observa- 
tion. Morality can be inculcated, as is done in the family, without 
setting forth its philosophical basis. There is, too, in every breast, 
a fountain of religious impulses, the welling of whose waters makes 
us human. No sect can possibly monopolize the waters of this 
fountain. They flow through all the churches, but also round about 
the churches. Now, upon our common humanity, which is religious, 
the State has a right to build a fully human school. If some group 
of men should object to such a school, saying, "It does not satisfy 
us, and therefore it is sectarian," the reply should be that this objec- 
tion, being an utterance of sectarianism, cannot be the basis of 
State action. The State can neither assume the point of vievv^ of any 
sect, nor can it agree to restrict its training to such a segment of the 
personality as may happen to be left after all the sects have defined 
their own prerogatives as they severally wish. Non-sectarianism 
is not a merely negative principle; it does not merely forbid one- 
sidedness — it also commands all-sidedness. For a school that ignores 
any side of the essential human personality is already one-sided, it is 
already sectarian. In a word, the entire exclusion of religion from 
our public schools would make them ipso facto sectarian in the fund- 
amental meaning of that term. 

3. We reach, then, this positive principle, that the school must 
co-operate with home and church in respect to religion as well as 
in respect to the other elements of culture. The school may not be 



^ J. ly. Spalding: Means and Ends of Education, 3 IJd., Chicago, 1901, p. 142. 

158 



neutral or indifferent. A school that ignores religion, though the 
purpose be simply that of being neutral, cultivates a divided self 
in the pupil. It leaves the world of the school unrelated in his 
consciousness to the world of the home and the church. A prime 
end of education, the unification of the personality, is thus defeated. 
A school that develops a purely secular consciousness violates the 
whole principle of continuity in education; it represents in aggra- 
vated form the isolation of the school from life and from other 
educational agencies. It does more than that. For to develop a 
purely secular consciousness is not to remain neutral toward religion, 
but to oppose it by setting up a set of rival standards. In a word, 
there is not, and there cannot be a school that, in its influence upon 
its pupils, is neutral with respect to religion. In some way, then, 
our State schools must positively co-operate with home and church, 
else our educational system is no system at all, but only a truce 
between rival clans. 

Continuity of impression can be attained without "dragging in" 
religion, and without either catechising or preaching. For religion 
is a concrete and a pervasive fact. It meets us at every turn. It 
presses upon our attention as the atmosphere exerts its pressure 
on all sides. In the personal relations and the moral life of the 
school, in the study of literature, history and nature, religious facts 
and points of view can be made impressive without once trying 
to prove the being of God or the truth of any dogma that is in 
dispute. It is more important for the State school to take religion 
for granted than to teach any proposition about it.^ 

Thus much can be done and is done in schools from which the 
laws exclude all religious exercises, even the reading of the Bible. 
Where law and public opinion permit religious exercises, however, 
they can be made a power in character formation. More than one 
of my correspondents speaks of the good influence they exert.^ From 
such exercises should be banished everything but such universally 



^ Cf. paper by E. E- White : Religion in the School, Proc. International Congress of 
i;ducation of the World's Columbian Exposition, published by the N. E- A., N. Y., 1894, 
p. 295. "The American public school assumes that the family and the church have given 
some attention to the religious instruction of children, and that its pupils are not ignorant 
of the existence of God, of man's accountability to him, and other primary religious 
beliefs." (p. 298.) 

* For example: "For five years I held daily chapel exercises. I read a selection from 
the Scriptures, the school then stood and chanted the I,ord's prayer, and sang a hymn. 
We found that these chapel exercises were helpful to teachers and to taught. They 
certainly sweetened the whole school day. Catholics and Jews made no objection, and 
they usually participated in the morning's exercises. Any attempt to drop 'chapel' would 
have been resented by pupils and by patrons." 

159 



human ideas, emotions and passages of Scripture as appeal to the 
common consciousness of the people. But these should be treated 
with such reverence and such a spirit of deep conviction as prevents 
all impression of perfunctoriness and artificiality. 

Parts of the Bible deserve not only to be read before the school, 
but also to be studied as masterpieces of literature. The study of 
literature, I take it, is not chiefly an analysis of grammatical or 
literary forms, but also an appreciation of human life as revealed 
in its records. He who properly studies a masterpiece of literature 
comes into its moral and spiritual atmosphere. Some of the psalms 
and proverbs, the beatitudes, some of the parables, the description 
of charity — these, studied merely as literature, without any touch 
of dogmatic interpretation, become a means of real spiritual culture. 
We already use other masterpieces of literature in precisely this 
way. 

Religious culture through the atmosphere of the school, through 
assumption and incidental allusion rather than through formal in- 
struction, requires that a religious tone should pervade the whole 
school. Every department and every teacher should sound the same 
note. Therefore, only persons who reverence God and show that 
reverence in their lives should be appointed to any teaching position. 
Let there be no discrimination against Catholic, Protestant, or Jew, 
but rigid discrimination against all candidates who are not likely 
to be a positive spiritual influence.^ 

SPECiAi. probIve;ms connected with the high school age. 

Most of what has been said applies to the elementary school as 
well as to the high school. But other parts of the problem are pecu- 
liar to the secondary school because it has to deal with pupils at a 
relatively distinct stage of mental development, the early and middle 
years of adolescence. During these years all the elements of the 
personality come into solution, so to speak, preparatory to the crystal- 
lization of maturity. Here, possibly, more than in other grades, 
the teacher should be an educator rather than a mere instructor, 
an organizer of character rather than a mere training master. In 

^Several principals lay stress upon this point. Thus: "A thoroughly good teacher 
with high ideals is the best help. Moral and religious training comes then almost uncon- 
sciously." "Give me freedom in selecting teachers, and I will give the school a moral 
tone that will be healthful in every detail. A weak teacher with a moral text-book 
is soon a huge joke to all students." The aim of his school, says this principal, is to 
teach literature, history, and science so as to show forth the power, wisdom, and goodness 
of God. "This is our aim," he says, "and we fall short only where the personal character 
of the teacher falls short." 

160 



the earlier grades the teacher's work consists in larger measure in 
training to right habits, the inner meaning of which is mostly beyond 
the horizon of the child-mind. The inner life of a child is compara- 
tively slight, and it is of necessity lacking in co-ordination. But in 
adolescence self-conscious co-ordination is spontaneously under- 
taken. The teacher now handles, arranges, combines the inner 
motives of the moral personality. This is another reason why the 
high school cannot help entering the sphere of religion as either a 
positive or negative force. To conduct recitations, laboratory exer- 
cises and examinations is only a part of the teacher's functions. 
Back of these, and permeating them with spiritual force, should be 
some sense of bearing a holy mission as revealer of life to youth. 

This implies three things — the impartation of outlook, of inspira- 
tion, and of stimulus to service. 

1. There is a distinction between seeing things and having out- 
look, "Elisha prayed and said, Xord, I pray thee, open his eyes, 
that he may see.' And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man ; 
and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and 
chariots of fire." (2 Kings, 6:17.) There is more to be seen in any 
mountain or plain than geological, botanical and zoological speci- 
mens; more than erosion, growth and decay. There is more in 
history than men and tribes and nations ; more than war and politics 
and industries ; more, even, than learning and art and religions. So, 
also, in getting a livelihood and taking our place in the civil and 
social body, there is involved more than dollars and dinners, offices 
and honors. Even in the workshop, the home, the polling place, 
we are each taking part in the mighty spiritual drama of man. 
To study nature and history and our occupation without considering 
the meaning of it all, without securing outlook as well as facts, is 
to miss the climax. A high school student will, of course, grasp 
little of the high philosophy of these things. It would be easy, 
too, to set him dreaming and to make him undervalue plain earth 
and good shoeleather. But he has a right to such outlook as he 
now becomes capable of. It is natural for him to take the second 
and deeper look at things, and a teacher has no higher duty than to 
help him realize that there is a divine meaning in all the objects 
that he studies. 

2. Emotional inspirations naturally follow. Let us be done with 
the outworn idea that schools exist to train the intellect but not 
the feelings! The school is to train for life by means of life; and 
of our life deep and noble feeling should form a large part. Middle 

161 



adolescence is a peculiarly favorable period for giving a right "set" 
to this element of personality. In the high school exuberant feeling 
should find itself at home, and discover wise direction toward noble 
objects. The exuberance of youth will soon enough be checked by 
the chill of mature occupations. Too soon, indeed, for is it not one of 
our greatest deprivations that our daily occupations are so often 
carried on without the glow of any ideal inspiration ? 

3. With outlook and inspiration there must go service of others 
— what we might call laboratory work in moral and religious train- 
ing. To this end the school itself can be organized as a society of 
mutual help animated by the thought of the fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood of men. Moreover, there should be a connecting 
link between the moral life of the high school and that of the com- 
munity. On the one hand, the pupil longs for worlds to conquer. 
He wishes to find a mission, and to count for something in the life 
of the great world. This shows that he is ready to be initiated 
into the preliminary degrees of social responsibility and service. 
This is the time for him to learn, through practice, that to live the 
life of a man is to give life freely for others. On the other hand, 
the cleanliness, the health, beauty, and order of our cities and towns 
suffer because no connection has been effected between the moral 
impulses of high school students and the collective life of the com- 
munity. In the same way religion suffers because the formative 
years of youth slip away before one learns the divine side of our 
social relations. The high school student is not too young to begin 
to lay hold upon the thought that to serve one's fellows is to par- 
ticipate in the deepest aspect of nature, of history, and of human 
life — that it is to become a factor in the spiritual movement of the 
universe.^ 

Many of our high schools are probably doing all that has been 
suggested. But others are not doing it, and are not attempting to do 

^ "From the pedagogic standpoint," says a close observer, "the withdrawal of the 
religious basis of the school curriculum has a decidedly pernicious eflfect upon the whole 
tone of the school. It is most unfortunate that because men cannot settle their 
sectarian differences, the most effective and potent instruments for character building 
are withheld from the teacher's use." — (R. E. Hughes: The Making of Citizens, A 
Study in Comparative Education, N. Y., 1902, p. 191.) 

"We hear a great deal of discussion about religious education in schools. Now I 
cannot but believe that if teaching could be carried on more thoroughly in the spirit 
that I have tried to indicate, it would be felt more and more that in essence all 
education is religious. For what is religion but the constant recognition that life has to 
be lived in the spirit of the whole, that we are not fragments, that the world is not a 
collection of fragments, but that our lives and the life of the world form a real 
whole?" — (J. S. Mackenzie: The Bearings of Philosophy on Education, Int. J. Eth., 8, 
p. 438.) 

162 



it. They are drifting upon a tide of sentiment that is unconscious 
of the deeper meanings of education. But the tide will turn. Relig- 
ion is too deep seated in the human soul, it is too closely concerned 
with human progress to permit any permanent separation between 
itself and any part of general education.^ 

The Chairman: 

Professor M. Vincent O'Shea, of the University of Wisconsin, 
will discuss this question further. 



MORAI. TRAINING IN THE HIGH SCHOOIv. 

Professor O'Shea: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: I have a complaint to make. I asked 
President James to relieve me from the discussion of this particular 
topic. He refused to relieve me. What I shall have to do now 
reminds me of a story told by President Angell. An instructor 
asked a student to construe a Latin sentence. The student said he 
could not, and added, "But, Professor, if you are willing, I will 
make some general remarks on astronomy." I have some general 
remarks to make. 

CONDENSED REPORT. 

The very first step to be taken in moral training in the high 
school is to make the studies of vital significance to each pupil. Mere 
formal discipline and drudgery must be abolished. What the high 
school pupil stands in need of is to study concrete, vital situations. 
Everything must have a life-relation, and the school must help the 
pupil to see the bearing of all he studies upon his real problems. 
In his literature he should gain genuine views of the highest social 
relationships of people, and he will then be likely to assimilate him- 
self in some measure with these situations by imitating them. In 
history he should have presented to him in the most real way the 
best types of character in individual and political life that are within 
his sphere of comprehension and appreciation. In science he should 
become acquainted with the world as it exists about him — the ani- 
mal life (not simply anatomy), plant life, and the physical phe- 

^ "What are the functions of an American state touching education? No one can 
enumerate them. They run into every instrumentality which makes for physical, intel- 
lectual, and moral advancement in harmonious company." . . . The function of the 
state is to keep the public schools "free from religious intolerance, while it advances the 
common belief in the reality of a living, omniscient God." — (Andrew S. Draper: Functions 
of the State Touching Education, Ed'l Rev. 15, pp. ii2f.) 

163 



nomena that are occurring about him continually. Such significant 
study will reach the boy's native interests, and it will not only 
occupy the attention, and so keep it off from forbidden subjects, but 
it will in addition furnish ideals of conduct toward which the will 
may strive. 

It is perhaps a familiar thought to-day that the boy who can 
use tools with precision, and work toward a definite end with ex- 
actness gains valuable experience in bringing his activities into 
accord with law. Whim, caprice, lack of clearness and definite- 
ness are quickly punished in manual training, while the opposite 
qualities are as quickly rewarded. Of course, the value derived 
from this experience is not of universal worth. Respect for physical 
law does not imply respect for the moral law in all situations ; the 
former is simpler and easier than the latter. But in the evolution of 
the individual the accomplishment of the lower in any activity aids 
in the accomplishment of what is higher therein. For this reason 
manual training, though apparently so remote from moral training, 
is nevertheless of service to it if it come at the right season, and as 
a foundation for more complex and subtle training. 

In football the individual struggles with his opponent, but at the 
same time he works for his group. He subordinates himself in 
some measure that the group as a whole may prosper. And in all 
he does he is bound by the rules of the game to which all give 
assent. To transgress them is to commit an offence, while observing 
them scrupulously will result in giving everyone a fair chance; and 
this in principle is at the bottom of all social conduct. It should 
be added that as in manual training so here — experience in playing 
the game ought not to be rated too high. Honesty on the football 
fi.eld does not insure honesty in examination ; though the simpler 
and perhaps physical sort of honesty is fundamental and in a way 
tributary to the higher thing. 

But when the pupil plays the game as a business its value may 
be called in question. The ancient Greek philosophers who attached 
so great importance to the worth of games in education realized 
that when they were pursued in the professional spirit they cor- 
rupted the moral nature. It seems that in our high schools today 
there is grave danger of athletics being reduced to professionalism. 
It makes little difference whether the pupil plays for money or for 
the renown of his institution ; if his sole ambition is to win at all 
hazards, and he competes not for the pleasure he derives from the 
experience but for the prize, he is from the subjective side a profes- 

164 . 



sional no matter how he may be classified technically. The present- 
day conception of the function of athletics in our schools seems 
altogether wrong. A few men give themselves mainly to this 
activity while the great body of students have no experience at all 
and are deriving no benefit of any consequence from games and 
plays. What is now needed above everything else is to develop 
the game idea in our schools, and lessen the importance attached 
to interscholastic athletic competition. 

The pupil should have a large amount of freedom to enter into 
vital relations with his fellows. He must live zvith not simply near 
them and he must work with them, and so learn the great lesson 
that if he aids them in any way he will receive benefit in return. 
If he is generous, generosity will be extended to him. He must dis- 
cover that honesty and every other cardinal virtue really pays in the 
end. But he can never learn this effectively if he sits alone in his 
seat and performs his tasks alone, and recites his lessons without 
aiding or receiving aid from anyone. 

These considerations emphasize the value of a measure at least 
of self-government in the high school. The pupil whose conduct is 
shaped largely by external authority can not profit greatly in his 
m.oral life. He gains headvv^ay only when he has a chance to aid in 
working out the rules which he must observe. In this way under 
skilful direction he is led to appreciate what sort of behavior in a 
great variety of situations is essential on the part of every one 
in order that the existence and happiness of the group may be con- 
tinued. 

Morality is not in real life a thing set apart by itself; it relates 
simply to the manner in which the activities of daily life are carried 
on. When moral conduct is isolated, and made a subject of specula- 
tion it may become of intellectual interest, but in its pursuit the pupil 
may gain little or no benefit in his practical life. Men treat of ethics 
who in their daily activities observe none of the principles they dis- 
cuss. These principles have not become organized into conduct; 
they have not touched the springs of conduct. On this account 
relatively little importance in moral education in the high school is 
to be attached to the formal study of ethics as a science, though un- 
questionably the discussion of concrete cases within the pupil's 
immediate experience and environment may prove of some avail. 
But it must be emphasized that these cases should lie zvithin the 
pupil's immediate sphere of conduct. 

Modern psychology teaches us that every normal human being, 

165 



especially in the early years, must be active in some direction, and 
it is our business as educators to determine this direction by sug- 
gestion of a positive sort. Mere negation leaves the individual 
either inert or with the wrong tendencies which we would inhibit. 
It often results in inciting the conduct which is sought to be pro- 
hibited ; and even if it does temporarily arrest evil action, it does not 
draw the attention of the offender away from the forbidden act, it 
does not cause his energy to flow into channels productive of good, 
and so whatever it accomplishes is but fleeting at best. 

After all the chief consideration in moral training in the high 
school, or anywhere else for that matter, must always be to place 
in the schoolroom strong, attractive moral men and women, such as 
have a delicate appreciation of what is right in the varied situations 
of daily living, and who have organized their appreciations into 
vigorous conduct. Let our boys and girls work and play with such 
instructors and they cannot fail of being determined by them for 
good in very large degree. Of all methods for improving the 
moral life of youth, this one is of chief importance. 

The Chairman : 

Principal Tompkins, of the Chicago Normal School, will close 
the formal discussion upon this topic. 

Principal Tompkins : 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Conference: I was very sorry 
to be late at your Conference this morning, but I missed my train 
and I did not know that Evanston was so far out of the world. 

To affirm that the high school should give attention to the moral 
and religious training of the pupil is to me nothing more than to 
affirm that the high school should educate the pupil. I think we 
have made a fundamental mistake in the fashion of slicing up the 
character of the pupil to be taught. In one section we collect his 
ethical nature, and in another his religious nature, and if these have 
been cultivated we think there is still something else to be educated. 
I do not think that is so. I think that the education of the ethical 
and the religious life takes care of the entire life. And these are 
not separate divisions of life. Whatever urges life upward is essen- 
tial to the one of these as it is to the other. You can name nothing 
in the life of the pupil you could desire in one but what is essential 
to the other. Unless the pupil is being made honest and upright 
by his school work he is not being educated; neither is he being 
moralized, neither is he being made religious. Unless he is pure 

166 



and simple and without guile he has none of the three. Unless 
he has broad views of the moral and physical world he is neither 
the one nor the other. Unless his life tends toward truth and God 
he is not educated, neither is he ethical nor religious. So I have 
been unable in all the study I have made to put my finger on any 
element desirable in the religious life that would not include the 
ethical and be essential in his education. Or to reverse the state- 
ment, I have been unable to find anything desirable in the education 
of the pupil that is not also essential to his moral and religious 
nature. We know very well that education is based on the identical 
impulse which makes for the betterment of his moral and religious 
being. He can be educated simply because he is personally responsi- 
ble, because he can set up his ideals of life, because he feels they 
have a claim upon him, because he is striving to realize his other 
and better self. If there were no such striving in his life he could 
not be educated. The fundamental impulse in education is an ethical 
one after all. It goes without saying that a high school that did 
not keep in mind this complete development of the pupil in the 
process of his education would be missing the mark very widely. 
That need not be argued here. 

There is one point I would like to emphasize and that is that 
this process is carried on not necessarily by separate program but 
it is essentially inherent in all good teaching. We have heard some- 
times that we ought to have a place on the program for cultivating 
the sense of the beautiful — the aesthetic sense. I have no objection 
to that, but a school that does not cultivate the aesthetic sense by 
every process of thought is very poor. The way to cultivate it is 
to teach school for all that it is worth and the rest will take care 
of itself. 

We have talked of a separate place for moral instruction. I 
once gave a course of lessons of life and conduct. I approve of 
such a course, but there is a more fundamental way to do it than 
that: teach school for all that that means and you have touched 
the ethical and the religious nature. There has been much discussion 
as to whether religion should be taught in the public school. I have 
little interest in that question. I have seen schools that had religious 
training, so-called, regularly in the morning, and they were very 
irreligious schools in spite of all that. That can be possible, you 
understand. I know of no better way to cultivate the religious 
nature of the pupil than simply to teach school with the full mean- 

167 



ing of that word, and the person who relies on this slicing up is 
likely to fall short of the end. 

A high school deals with a peculiar phase of his life. A high 
school is not a place where certain subjects are taught. That does 
not distinguish it from other schools. You can say it is a place where 
they teach algebra and geometry and Latin, but that does not define 
it. There is no way I know to define a high school except as a 
certain phase in the developing life of the pupil. It is just this. 
A high school is a phase of life when ideals begin to dawn, when 
self-consciousness begins to clarify itself, when pupils begin to take 
an interest in their own lives. Should we fail here to help the pupil 
to come into clear consciousness of his powers and possibilities? 
The high school teacher has a great opportunity in this one thing. 
This is the time of life beyond all others at which the life of the 
pupil is to be shaped for all time. It is now if ever that the pupil's 
life is to be determined by proper ideals. Here it is to be decided 
forever whether he is to continue the "easy valley way or whether 
he is to take the rugged mountain road to the holy city." The high 
school has its special opportunity in enthroning ideals. The teacher 
who fails to point the pupil to the higher ideals of life has failed 
to make him religious in the best sense. Somebody has said that 
the high school is the place where the pupil is trained first clearly 
and distinctively to be an independent searcher after truth. Then 
he is trained to walk by the light of his own thinking. Oh, what 
a revelation it is in the life of any individual when he comes to 
perceive that he can search out truths ! In the high school if the 
pupil is trained to be passively receptive of course that is defeated. 
The pupil has no right to graduate until he is self-propelling and 
self-directing in the search of truth. I do not know any higher 
moral quality given to an individual than this. He ought to grad- 
uate in history when he has a love for that subject. He ought to 
be able to state for instance in a science or in his rhetoric the single 
idea that it enfolds, and to construct the subject by its creative idea. 
A pupil ought never to remember anything in school. They don't 
do it anyway. I remember a beautiful statement of Swing's. He 
says with lamentation, "I have forgotten. What matters it? The 
poet has taken me by the hand and led me to the heights and I 
have never yet descended." 

Did you ever think that thinking is religious process ? Thinking, 
I mean, downright thinking, just thinking, true thinking, accurate 
thinking, is devotion. Two and two make four is not secular; that 

168 



is divinely appointed. We do not fix it. In his study the pupil 
is yielding himself to the divine order of the world. I saw sometime 
ago in a beautiful preface to an old arithmetic this statement : The 
author after making his apology for writing his book, as every 
author ought to do, says this, "And now I commend you to the 
grace of God who maketh all things by number." This is left 
out of the new arithmetics. Without jesting at all, I believe that 
a teacher has no business to teach arithmetic who has not that 
sense of the divinity of number in him. When the student is 
v/orking out his geometry he is really devout. We talk about 
altruism as being the great thing in life. Altruism does not mean 
that we simply attend to our neighbor and our friends. Man can 
lose himself in the great eternal truth of this world. I do not know 
but that if you will trace out these processes you will easily see 
that any process that you go through with is really bringing you 
nearer to the creative energy of the world. Illustration: We talk 
about forming concepts. Emerson says that in a generalization 
there is an influx of the divinity. After I read that statement I had 
a new sense of what it meant to lead pupils to generalize. Did 
you ever stop to analyze what it is a man does when he forms 
the concept? He is trying to find the nature of the energy that 
produces the thing. It is nothing more than his craving for touch 
with the creative force of the world. If he did not have that craving 
for unity with God he never could have this craving to know what 
the truth is. In it all he is simply feeling his way one by one, a 
little farther back, until he comes to the creative force of the world. 
Somebody has said that beauty is God manifest to the senses. So 
running through the entire process there is this thought which 
brings the pupil into close touch with the infinite life everywhere. 
The school is a place to think. Now thinking is the process by 
which man passes from this visible world to the invisible, from the 
finite to the infinite, and I do not know that any other conception 
of it can be made. If the pupil did not crave the touch of the 
infinite he never would think. He would have no motive to think. 
You know how deep is the song, "Nearer my God to Thee." It 
voices the impulse to all thinking. Of course I know we have 
trained ourselves to a narrow view of this conception. I am not 
speaking as a church man, I am speaking strictly as one who has 
tried to analyze this process closely, and I have been forced time 
after time to a clear conviction of the unity of this whole matter in 
education and that our thinking process is to bring us a little nearer 

169 



God. You can put whatever else into your religious convictions 
you wish, but there is one thing you will have to put into it, and 
that is that it is a craving, a thinking, a striving — nothing more or 
less — striving for unity with God, and all the processes of educa- 
tion are to bring the pupil to a realizing sense of this unity. 
Tun Chairman : 

In justice to the other topics on the program we cannot devote 
more than one hour to the general dicussion of this very interesting 
topic. I will second President James' request that those of you who 
wish to discuss the question will please send your names to the 
chairman. No one can be recognized from the floor so long as 
we have others listed ahead. We shall have also to restrict the 
time of this informal discussion to five minutes for each speaker. 

Professor J. F. Brown is the first to talk on this question. 

Professor Brown is not present; we shall therefore listen to 
President Miller of Ruskin University. 

Preside^nt Mii^IvER: 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Conference: It seems to me 
that the chief point thus far in the consideration of the teaching 
of morality in our schools is that our idea has been that we cannot 
make the teaching of morality concrete, that we must make it very 
general in order to keep from offending people, and the result has 
been that most of our teaching on that line has been about as 
indefinite as one of George Eliot's character's knowledge of Latin. 
You remember that she said he had a good knowledge of Latin in 
general but no knowledge of any particular Latin. We think that 
it is a good thing to teach morality in general, but that we cannot 
teach any particular application of morality in our schools. That, 
it seems to me, is the fundamental mistake. One of the objections 
to religious or sectarian teaching in our schools has been that we 
have made the matter too concrete, in a verbal form at least, that 
we have insisted upon certain formulated beliefs, and so religious 
teaching from a theological point of view has been ruled out of 
schools not denominational. Now the question confronts us whether 
it is not possible to reduce morality to something of a concreteness 
without religious formality. I believe it is possible. It has been 
a surprise to me that we have overlooked some of the most impor- 
tant maxims of the great educators of the world. The greatest 
teacher that ever walked the earth said, "He that would know must 
do." That is the substance of it. "If any man will do my will 
he shall know the doctrine" and that is absolutely the only way of 

170 



ever knowing anything — by doing it, Tolstoi says, "You cannot 
develop moral character without manual labor." Froebel declared 
himself as convinced that manual labor was essential to the highest 
development. Ruskin said, "The highest and best method is whole- 
some human employment," and he further said, "I would have 
belonging to and surrounding every parish school enough land 
to employ all of the pupils in fine weather, and also a carpenter 
shop." How much have we done toward putting that into opera- 
tion? It is true that our manual training has to a certain extent 
filled this want, and it is a fact that after the introduction of manual 
training in the Chicago schools the number of young men passing 
from the grammar grades to the high school increased from ten per 
cent, to twenty-five per cent. What does it mean? Simply that 
when you put the boy to work so that he does something he will 
take an interest in his school work. An old citizen of Seymour, 
Iowa, told me that a number of citizens of that place had discussed 
the matter of how many young men had gone out and made a 
career. He said that very few of the boys from the town had 
made a success, while those from the nearby farms had been almost 
invariably successful. He gave it as his judgment that the reason 
for this was that the town boys had had nothing to do while pursuing 
their studies, whereas the farm boys did the chores morning and 
evening and worked during the summer vacations. That is, the 
boys on the farm were doing something. Now, why is it that a 
greater proportion of girls graduate? Girls have something to 
do. Our small towns and our cities have become moral and intel- 
lectual grave yards for our boys because they have nothing to do. 
Now, is it possible to apply this to the question in hand? One of 
the most significant things in the address last night was that in 
the school of the future we may be able to employ the high school 
pupils in carrying on the work of our municipal institutions. Let 
us not look to our Rockefellers and our Carnegies, but let us by 
taxation of the people put into the public treasury enough money 
to establish school farms and school dressmaking shops, and every- 
thing else needed for industrial training. Can it be done? You 
know that at Tuskegee, Alabama, Booker Washington has eclipsed 
all of us and has demonstrated the fact that colored people can 
make a success of education and earn their living while they are 
getting their education. I make an appeal for as good an education 
for our white boys and girls as Booker Washington furnishes for the 
colored boys and girls. 

171 



The; Chairman : 
, Professor Fischer of Wheaton College. 

Professor Fischer: 

Perhaps I may be allowed to complete the address interrupted 
yesterday morning. I remember that Kant, I believe it was, was 
criticised once in regard to his system of philosophy in something 
like these words : "He elaborated a perfect system of philosophy 
and when it was finished he found that there was no God in it. 
So he was compelled to drag him in at the back door." I have 
been listening to the discussions yesterday and this morning and 
I have been impressed with that lack in the moral and religious 
training in the high school. I am very well aware that many will 
not agree with me, and yet I feel that this is such an important 
matter that we ought to speak plainly and earnestly. The thought 
of personal obligation — my personal responsibility to God, is the 
thing that is needed to develop good Christians and it is the essen- 
tial thing in getting religion. I enjoyed very much the address 
by Professor Coe. I should, I think, eliminate the word Jew, not 
that I hate the Jews, but the God of the Christian is the God of the 
Bible, the God of the New Testament as well as the Old Testament, 
and we should fail to honor Him as we should if we did not 
recognize clearly the difference between the believer in God as 
revealed in Christ and one who rejects Christ. Now, this may 
seem like needless theology, but I insist it is not. Let us believe 
in God ourselves. Let us not be afraid to let the students know this. 
Let us insist on it that this is a Christian nation, and that being 
a Christian nation, all its education should be imparted in the spirit 
of the religion which Jesus Christ came not only to teach but to 
exemplify in His life. 

The Chairman : 

I have no other names here of those who have announced their 
intention to speak. I shall be glad to recognize speakers from the 
floor. I am sure there are more of you who have something to say. 

Professor Drummond, of the University of Nebraska. 

Professor Drummond: 

I have been comparing the religious instruction in the American 
high school with the religious instruction in the German Gymnasium. 
I must say that I have certain regrets when I make that comparison. 
There is a large element of religious instruction in the German 
Gymnasium that I should like to see in the American high school. 

172 



We of course know that the American high school pupil has very 
little knowledge of the Bible to begin with. We tried to read Lowell 
and Whittier with our students and we found that ten students out 
of thirty did not understand certain lines applying to Mount Sinai. 
Furthermore, our students have very little information of the de- 
velopment of religious institutions. The student who comes from 
the German Gymnasium has three years' instruction in the History 
of Religion. He knows the diflference between the Greek and Roman 
church. He gets an insight into the inner workings of history 
that we do not get. Our American students study history super- 
ficially. It is the simple, the external element in the history and 
not that very core that we find in the history of religion. I know 
that there are certain difficulties in introducing that work. There 
is an objection to formal instruction in the Bible, and that is to be 
justified from the complex nature of our people, and yet I have my 
regrets that that kind of instruction cannot be given in the high 
school. We feel definitely what the influence of the Greek and the 
Roman literature was upon English and German literature, and 
yet our students have no conception of the influence of the Bible — 
the main influence upon English literature after all. 

Now, there is another element that I wish to emphasize and that 
is this, that every one who has at all seriously looked at the German 
Gymnasium and has looked at the American high school will con- 
cede that the religious spirit in the high school is far superior to 
the spirit in the German institution. I believe that is due to a lack 
of formalism in our teaching, and also in part to the presence of 
wom.en in our high schools. I do not at all believe in turning over 
the high school to the women, but I do wish to say that that high 
religious tone that prevails in our high school certainly is due to 
them in a very large degree. I must take issue with some things 
that Professor O'Shea said this morning. The tendency is toward 
manual training and toward the sciences, I very readily agree, and 
yet I do not want to see our secondary schools turned entirely in 
that direction. It seems to me that our drift is going a little too 
much in that way in that we are not encouraging the live teaching 
of literature and the languages — the culture studies. I do not wish 
to discourage the manual training idea, but I do not like to see 
everything going in that direction. It seems to me there is an 
undue outcry against form. I am sure that our American high 
school is going to develop in the direction contrary to form until 
we do not understand forms at all. How many high school gradu- 

173 



ates are able to read a paragraph of Macaulay and get an under- 
standing of the spirit back of it? The reason for that is that many 
of our philologists have not taught philology in the proper spirit. 
The fact that men have taught philology who have simply become 
formalists does not mean that the form cannot be taught in such 
a way as to reveal the spirit back of it. That teaching of form 
thought I want to see in the American high school. 

The; Chairman : 

The next speaker is President Mauck of Hillsdale College, Hills- 
dale, Michigan. 

Pre;sident Mauck: 

Mr. Chairman : This discussion brings out a line of demarcation 
noted before. Our view-point really depends upon the word "may" 
— "What may the high school do — " Grammar was referred to 
this morning. It seems by that word "may" that we have power 
under the law to do what we are fitted to do. It has occurred to 
me in this discussion that we have been undertaking to show what 
the high schools and other schools are able to do, provided they have 
the authority to do it. There seems to be in the minds of all the idea 
that it would be very helpful if all the schools had the right to 
place their sanction on religion as the basis of moral instruction, 
but that unfortunately the courts of the country are against that 
right. I regard the courts as entirely sacred, but the position of our 
courts is changing from time to time. We talk about the separation 
of church and state. That was brought about by certain people 
who protested that the state should not prescribe the form of their 
worship, that the claims of religion were so sacred that they should 
not be prescribed. If some of those people who thought thus were 
to see the things that are prescribed today they would almost rise 
from their graves. We are having decisions in the State of Michi- 
gan and in the State of Wisconsin along that line. It depends largely 
upon public sentiment. 

I can speak for an institution in the West, a State University. 
The president of one of the other institutions said to me, "I would 
be glad if our denominational schools had as high religious tone 
as we have here at the State University." Why was it? It was 
because that was in one of the new Western States where the deci- 
sions of the courts do not bind them yet. I know thoughtful men of 
the present day who predict that in these Western States the deci- 
sions of the courts will be so shaped by the new sentiment as to be in 

174 



favor of such a position as Professor Coe took. We will find in 
some parts of our western country that the State is not only per- 
mitting the public schools to teach religion, but is even encouraging 
them to consider it an absolute duty. May the time soon come 
when we will all agree that the public schools should take a positive 
view in the matter of the religious training of young people. 

The; Chairman: 

Dr. Charles McMurry, of the State Normal School, DeKalb, 
Illinois will be the next speaker. 

Dr. McMurry: 

One of the dominant tones that is running through the discus- 
sion this morning is that whatever of religious instruction comes up 
in our schools comes up as a natural growth, you might say as a 
spontaneous incident of the whole life and teaching of the school. 
It has occurred to me that it might be well for us in the high school 
to consider how far our present course of study in the high school, 
if utilized and appropriated for what is in it, would inevitably teach 
many or perhaps all the essential elements of religious thought and 
spirit. For example, we have the history of Europe and of the 
United States. Perhaps the most powerful and greatest central influ- 
ence from which our modern history has sprung is the Reformation 
and the life of Luther. Then there is the reformation in England 
and the later Puritan development in England and the extension 
to this country and the results of it. How is it possible historically 
to trace up and understand these things without understanding a 
few of the simplest ideas of our present Christian civilization and 
of almost every one of our present Christian sects? I think that a 
good deal about this question, for example, as to how far the life 
of Luther influenced his time, can be taught in the common schools, 
below the high school and in the high school. We cannot under- 
stand these things, we cannot understand the most powerful forces 
in American history except as we study the life of the Puritans 
and of such men as William Penn and the earlier patriots and fathers 
of our political and social life. We cannot get at them and know 
anything about them without seeing the Christian conviction in 
which they lived and moved. These things are in our school course 
and will never get out. Why should we not use them for all they are 
worth ? They are the most powerful elements in history. It is worth 
while for us to consider how far the roots of all these great Chris- 
tian and moral and religious ideas are alive in the lives and convic- 

175 



tions and results of our history. How far can we teach history 
without bringing this out? ^ 

The Hterature that we are trying to cultivate in the grades of 
the common school and in the high school — literature of this country 
and of England, the poems of Whittier and Longfellow, the writ- 
ings of Emerson, Shakespeare, and the great masters in English 
prose and poetry — are saturated with these profoundly religious 
ideals so appropriate to stimulate our young people. They are 
almost as sacred to us as our own Bible, they are as pure in the 
essence of religious culture as anything we have — as the Bible itself, 
and they are in our course of study. They are the things we are 
making use of in all the grades below the high school and in the 
high school. The great question is. How shall we utilize this rich 
material? The teachers must solve that. Can we introduce into 
the high school the great biographies of great people in the history 
of our own country and the world? We know that in Bible and 
church history in all countries where Christianity has prevailed that 
the influence of the biographies in the Bible has been profoundly 
significant in the education of nations, of children, and of older 
people. The life of Wesley, the life of Luther, of Whitfield — these 
are not outside of our civilization. We must understand them. One 
of the first things we should do is to dig up and find out what 
these treasures are and then make use of them. 

The Chairman : 

Professor Folwell, of the University of Minnesota, is the next 
speaker. 

Professor Folwei^l: 

There is one word which I think ought to be said before this 
discussion closes, and that is that we are expecting too much of 
the schools which are already loaded down. As a teacher of politi- 
cal economy I have to discourse upon the topic of division of labor. 
It is a mistake to expect too much of our schools and too little of 
the family and the church. We ought to ask less of our schools. 

In regard to the matter of religious instruction I think this 
ought to be said. In our public schools there should be, following 
this principle of division of labor, no place and no excuse for any- 
thing like sectarian instruction. I do not want the Sandemanians 
or the Dunkards or the Old-Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit-Predestinarian 
Baptists "monkeying" with my children. I have a right to send 
my children to the schools for school work, to have them let alone 

176 



in their religion. As for morals, I do not care as a teacher for an 
opportunity to stand up and tell my pupils that honesty is a good 
thing, or that virtue is a good thing. I do want an opportunity 
to let those students see that I am a square man, that I do not 
deceive, that my word is good, that what I am today I will be 
tomorrow. That is the opportunity for the teacher — to lead a true, 
square life before the student, I do not care for any opportunity 
to talk "goody" to a student. My last word is that when we shall 
simply keep school as school ought to be kept, we shall be giving 
the best moral instruction possible. 

The; Chairman : 

Mr. R. E. Cutler of the Chicago Schools. 

Mr. Cuti,e;r: 

I rise to speak for the Chicago high schools because I am aware 
that there is an impression that we in Chicago are a very wicked 
set, and the President of our Normal School has said that religion 
is barred in Chicago high schools. I simply wish to give a personal 
testimony that I have been teaching in Chicago in the high school 
work for the last eighteen years, and during that time I have felt 
entirely untrammeled in every way, shape or manner in regard to 
moral and religious instruction in my classes, no matter whether 
American history, or geology, or astronomy, or civics, or political 
economy, and I have taught all those subjects. When a question 
comes up in science we try to present both sides in the utmost free- 
dom. When there is a question of the religious tenets involved in 
the discussion I simply point it out, and whether in the history of 
the ancients or modern European history, we have discussed it with 
the utmost freedom. If there was the question of the attitude of 
science to the eternal laws we have discussed it with the utmost 
freedom, and during the eighteen years there has not been the least 
hint that I was going too far and that there ought not to be dis- 
cussion of moral and religious questions in connection with our 
school work. I can say this for Chicago, and knowing that I can 
say it of Chicago, I do not hesitate to say that I believe it depends 
upon the teachers who are here assembled how much moral training, 
how much moral instruction, we have in our public schools. If 
we desire it, if we are imbued with the principles of morality suffici- 
ently to love to teach and to present those ideals to our classes I be- 
lieve we have perfect liberty to do it, and I do not believe that there is 
any law of man to interfere with us. 

177 



The; Chairman: 

Professor Hollister, High School Inspector for the University 
of Illinois. 

Professor HoIvUSTer : 

It has occurred to me in all that has been so most excellently- 
said that one important feature in regard to moral training in our 
schools has been overlooked. I refer not to the teaching so much 
as to what we may call the general spirit of the school as manifested 
in the management of its business affairs, or in what generally 
comes under the term of school discipline. It does seem to me that 
in this factor we have a very important consideration. Let me 
illustrate by a case in point. It was my pleasure a few years ago 
to visit two large high schools in a certain city. The first one which 
I visited was dominated by that spirit of humanism which led the 
pupils with the teachers to recognize each other's rights and to look 
carefully into the welfare and the comfort of all. At that school 
I found that the spirit of freedom and the spirit of self-confidence 
and self-direction on the part of the students was most admirable. 
At the second school I found just the opposite conditions. The 
school was dominated by the spirit of the martinet. It was the 
spirit of emphasized control, the spirit which said that, "I, the 
principal of this school, expect to direct and govern it in all its 
details." I found the teachers in a spirit of silent rebellion against 
this thing. I found the pupils, who were led from room to room 
by the teachers — I found these pupils in rebellion against this thing, 
and I found them devising all sorts of means and methods by 
which they might infringe so far as they dared against such arbi- 
trary treatment. Here, fellow teachers, is a case of the highest type 
of moral training on the one hand, as over against the strongest 
and most striking type of immoral training on the other that could 
be possible in the spirit of the school. Another thing is the matter 
of sanitation in school. This has its place. You know the adage, 
"Cleanliness is next to Godliness." We must not lose sight of these 
considerations. I am inclined to think of this by the concrete illus- 
tration brought to our minds by these two adjacent communities, 
the city of Chicago and Evanston. I presume that President 
Tompkins meant when he said he did not know that Evanston 
was so far out of the world that he was really glad to get out of 
the world. Evanston is in the world and not of it. I believe that 
those of us who have enjoyed its hospitality and the beauties of its 

178 



surroundings and its home life can fully appreciate this fact. Not 
a word against Chicago. Chicago is doing all she can do consider- 
ing the great masses of indigestible material, and the dirt, and the 
smoke mixed in, with which she has to deal. God bless those who 
are making such heroic efforts to help Chicago! Here is an illus- 
tration of the principle, and it comes out not merely in our largest 
cities, but in the villages — the question of proper cleanliness and 
sanitation and its influence upon school life. If we can get these 
seemingly gross, materialistic things settled properly we shall do 
very much in the matter of the moral training of the pupils in our 
schools. 

The Chairman : 

President King of Cornell College. 

Pre;sident King: 

Mr. Chairman : I have been very much gratified at the strength 
of this program and discussion. I have received some new help, 
and I hope we all have, first, in the fact that in our high schools 
we can and do practically teach religion. I am glad to hear that 
illustrated by brother workers in the high school. That is a valu- 
able acquisition. If that were sown broadcast through society it 
would be of great benefit in certain circles. I am glad also to see 
that there are better things ahead, that we can do better along this 
line than we have been doing. The trend of this discussion is very 
helpful in that direction. I am glad further that intense denomina- 
tionalism and intense sectarianism have received a severe slashing 
and condemnation, as they should. I am glad further to believe that 
infidelity and irreligion on the other hand have received correspond- 
ing censure and condemnation. In other words, that the field of 
the high school is in the center, if I may say so, between irreligion 
and infidelity on the one hand, and narrow sectarianism on the other 
hand, and that it has there a genuine field which allows it to be re- 
ligious, elevating and ennobling. I have been comforted very much 
in the trend and results of this discussion and I hope that its results 
may go out broadcast over this land and elevate the public sentiment 
so that our educators and our school instructors shall feel that the 
high school and all the public schools may be and should be fields 
of religious and moral education. 



179 



Thi: Chairman : 

Superintendent Whitney, of the Elgin, 111. Schools. 

Supe;rinte;ndent Whitney : 

Ladies and Gentlemen: It was my privilege a year ago to note 
down during one day's visits in high schools the points that I 
regarded as distinctly moral instruction in the various work of the 
school without the teacher knowing what I was noting or making 
any unusual attempt at moral instruction. I noted more than a 
dozen different things that were distinctly moral. I will mention 
only three. The recitation of the Lord's prayer by the class in the 
morning; a discussion of the Battle of Hastings and the bringing 
out of the point that the Normans spent the night before the battle 
in prayer while the Saxons spent it in revel ; in the study of Paradise 
Lost, as you know, one of the purposes of the author in writing 
that poem was, as he states, to 

"Justify the ways of God to man." 

The discussion arose as to whether he did it, whether he proved 
his case, and the burden of the testimony of the class was that he 
had "justified the ways of God to man" in his poem. 

I judge from some of the remarks this morning that there is a 
little misunderstanding on the part of some in regard to the legal 
phase of religious teaching, and the legal phase of the use of the 
Bible in the United States. It was my privilege a little over a year 
ago to make a study of the question in all the States of the Union. 
There is only one State that prohibits the use of the Bible, and that 
in a modified way, according to the extract of the decision of the 
Supreme Court of Wisconsin given by one of the speakers this 
morning. There are decisions of State Superintendents in, I think, . 
six or seven other States prohibiting the use of the Bible in schools, 
but that is not final for it has not been passed upon by the courts, 
where the chances are that the decisions of the State Superintendents 
would be reversed. Massachusetts is the only State that requires 
the use of the Bible. 

The Chairman : 

We should not take more than five minutes more. 
Mr. E. C. Page, of the DeKalb Normal School. 

Mr. Page: 

I shall make only two remarks, and one is, by way of emphasis, 
of the value in the religious teaching in the schools of the personal 

180 



character of the teacher. That to my mind is a most essential 
thing. If the teacher is a reHgious man, a moral man, not in the 
way you put on your coat — wearing his religion and morality — 
but in the essential makeup of his being, through and through, 
religious and moral, he cannot help but be a religious teacher, 
unconsciously and unobserved and unobtrusively, every day of his 
life and every moment he spends in the recitation room, in the 
corridor, or wherever he may be. It will come like the sunshine 
and like the rain. 

And then another point. I believe that every teacher should 
have convictions, political and religious, and that he should not 
on proper occasions be ashamed to express those convictions, not 
by way of enforcing them upon others, but so that it will be known 
that he has convictions. We have too much in politics and in 
religion of the jellyfish spirit of life in these days. We need to 
believe something. I made the remark to a class yesterday that 
I am not so sure that it is so radically necessary that we shall 
believe this thing or that, as it is that we shall believe something. 
Believe it, I mean ; not have an intellectual apprehension of it. And 
if we believe in our religious matters and political matters, it will 
help us in our teaching in the school. 

The Chairman : 

Does Professor Coe care to take a minute or two? 

Professor Coe: 

I feel that this discussion should not be prolonged ; I will there- 
fore try to be exceedingly brief. In the first place I desire to lay 
more emphasis upon the remark made by Mr. Cutler with regard 
to the responsibility of the teacher. The responses to the questions 
referred to in my paper show very clearly that the center of responsi- 
bility for the moral and religious element in teaching is in the 
teacher himself. For example, one high school principal make^ 
the following statement: "We teach in the interpretation of litera- 
ture, history and morals the existence of a supreme God who is our 
loving Father." Another principal in the same city writes, "All such 
instruction is forbidden by law in this State." Now, as a matter 
of fact, such instruction is not forbidden by the law of that 
particular State. 

In the next place, I wish to call attention to the fact that many 
of our high schools are already doing much in the way of moral 
and religious training. About one-third of the high schools to which 

181 



I have referred — some seventy-seven accredited schools of North- 
western University — is already giving positive religious interpreta- 
tions in the ordinary studies of the curriculum. But that there is 
a decided lack in some schools seems to be clearly shown in this, 
that not only are no text-books in morals used — that perhaps is 
good — but also in response to the question whether any specific 
training in morals is given, nearly one-fourth answered "None." 

A gentleman in the audience : On account of the word "specific." 
Proj^essor Coe:: 

But answers that contained any qualification were not included 
in this one-fourth. I am giving you now only the number of princi- 
pals who answered specifically "None." The question is very 
definite — "What specific training in morals is given?" The reply 
"none" may mean that none is attempted, or it may mean that 
what is attempted is so indefinite and so slightly organized in the 
consciousness of the teacher that he does not know exactly what 
he is trying to do. 

The Chairman : 

We shall have to close this discussion at this point. I think it 
is possible we shall revert to it. We shall proceed immediately 
to the reading and discussion of the papers under the next topic. 
The topic is, 

"SOME SERIOUS DEFECTS IN OUR HIGH SCHOOL 

SYSTEM." 

Principal Richard L. Sandwick, of the Deerfield Township High 
School, will present the first paper on "too many women teachers."" 

Principal R. L. Sandwick : 

I know you will all think me a very bold man to come before 
an educational audience with any such subject as this. The fact is 
I am not bold enough to discuss it in this way. I would say, 
"Too Few Men Teachers" and would not confine it to the high 
school alone. 

Among the recent movements in education, none is more worthy 
of notice than the call for more men in public school work. The 
proportion of women teachers has grown steadily. Fifty years ago 
the men engaged in school work outnumbered the women; the 
civil war reversed this, and the gap has widened with each suc- 
ceeding year. There are fewer men teaching today than there were 

182 



in i860, but there are four times as many women. Women will 
probably continue to do a greater part of the teaching. It is gen- 
erally recognized that they are better suited than men to instruct 
young children; and there is certainly a place for them both as 
teachers and students all the way up from kindergarten to college. 
Women have exerted a softening and humanizing influence that is 
accountable in part for the change from the rough school of fifty 
years ago from which the teacher was not seldom pitched into the 
road by his bigger pupils, to the happy, orderly school room of 
today. Women teachers have accepted a salary scarcely half what 
men of like capacity would have accepted. They have thus been 
the means of extending the public school system to a point far 
beyond what taxpayers would have borne if equal intelligence had 
been secured from men. For these and other services in education 
women are to be congratulated. 

And yet we cannot help believing that any further increase in 
the relative number of women teachers would not be to the interests 
of education. Women outnumber the men in high schools already; 
and below the high school they reign supreme. Many large city 
schools of grammar grade employ no men teachers. A majority 
of boys and girls never come under the instruction of men. There 
is danger in this of a one-sided development; both sexes are being 
educated by the sex whose relation to the political and industrial 
systems is not usually that of either voters or wage-earners. 

Less than one woman in five is engaged in earning a living. 
Of these comparatively few are under the necessity of so doing. 
They seldom have persons dependent upon them for support, and 
not often would suffer if thrown out of employment. Their earn- 
ings are usually additional to the support given them by others 
and are regarded as supplementary to the family budget. Even 
when engaged away from home they can usually count on a father's 
support in case work fails. Marriage relieves most women of th^ 
responsibility of self-support, and parents are willing to keep their 
daughters at home longer than their sons. The woman teacher 
has not been accustomed from early life to the thought that she 
must one day earn her living. She knows even after entering the 
school room that her career as a teacher is likely at any time to be 
cut short by marriage. Comparatively few women are wage earners ; 
the economic condition of the woman wage earner is moreover 
quite dififerent from that of the man; and the difference lies in the 
fact that the one is much less under the necessity of work than the 

183 



other. It might naturally be inferred that the education of both 
sexes by that sex upon which the necessity of earning a living is 
rarely imposed^ would tend to keep economic considerations in the 
background. And it is true. Even in the higher grades economic 
independence is seldom a conscious aim; and the aesthetic has a 
larger place than the useful. There ought to be more sympathy 
than there is for the boy with a yearning as he enters the age of 
adolescence to get out into the work-a-day world and earn a place 
for himself; a thing which the enrollment shows he is pretty likely 
to do if school does not prove that he will be the gainer by delay. 

The presence of girls in the same classes with boys is not with- 
out significance here. It acts as a reenforcement of the same tend- 
ency away from the economic side which we have noted as a re- 
sult of teachers exclusively women. A study of the tastes and 
preferences of women students in our universities, as indicated by 
the studies they elect, reveals the fact that they are not influenced 
to a great extent by economic considerations. Women choose the 
purely cultural courses. A much larger proportion of women than 
men specialize in languages and literature; while very few take 
seriously to physics, chemistry, mathematics, political economy and 
political science. 

In the University of Chicago in 1900-01 there were 3,520 stu- 
dents registered in attendance, of whom 1,844 were men and 1,676 
were women. The two sexes were thus fairly equal in point of 
numbers, the men outnumbering the women by 168. But in the 
language courses women greatly outnumbered the men. There were 
during the year, 1,803 women studying English, and only 1,084 
men; in French there were 468 women and 435 men; in Latin 621 
to 430. In those courses, which are more practical as being more 
closely associated with industry, the figures are reversed; here the 
men greatly outnumber the women. In chemistry, during the same 
year, there were 666 men enrolled and 120 women; in physics, 353 
men and 90 women; in political economy, 354 men and 65 women. 
As showing that women are less interested in politics and govern- 
mental matters, there were in political science only 68 women to 
269 men. 

These figures have been compared with statistics of other uni- 
versities in the same subjects, and they show a remarkable similarity. 
Where the elective system is more freely allowed, the choice of 
culture courses by women and of utility courses by men is still 
more marked. At the Leland Stanford Junior University, in 1901- 

184 



02, the number of students registered was 1,295, of whom 737 
were men and 458 were women, the latter numbering only about 
three-fifths as many as the men. Of the students electing English 
as a major subject, 156 were women and 58 were men; in Latin 
44 majors were women and 26 were men. On the other hand, in 
chemistry and economics, the women made but a small showing; 
in the former there were 56 men to 13 women, and in the latter 62 
men to 7 women. These figures will be more apparent in the case 
of both universities cited by reference to the graphs below. A large 
number of college women prepare themselves for teaching; it is 
probable that still fewer would be found in the sciences if these 
were not demanded in the teaching profession. 

The great preponderance of girl students in our high schools, 
coupled with the fact that more than half the teachers are women, 
may account for the loss of ground which the sciences have recently 
met with in secondary schools. The period from 1890 to 1900 was 
one of rapid expansion in high school work; the requirements for 
graduation were greatly strengthened, in some cases the amount 
of required work being almost doubled. During this decade the 
number of students pursuing courses in history, algebra, English, 
and the languages (Greek excepted) was greatly augmented; from 
5 per cent, to 50 per cent, more of high school students being oc- 
cupied with each of these subjects in 1900 than in 1890. But the 
percentage of students taking work in science has actually fallen 
off. The figures are taken from reports of the Commissioner of 
Education at Washington.^ 

Greek is the only language that suffered a decline. The falling 
off in the number pursuing physics and chemistry is out of all 
harmony with modern industrial demands ; students of these sub- 
jects in scientific and technical schools are being called to positions 
before they have graduated. 

Among those preparing to enter college, the scientific is losing 
ground, the classical gaining. In 1889-90, 51 per cent, of students 

^ The table below gives the per cent, of students in high schools pursuing courses 
during the years indicated at head of columns; showing a growth in the cultural courses 
and a falling off in the scientific. 

Course. 1889-90 1895-96 1900-01 

I,atin 35-69 46.18 50.61 

Greek 3.05 3. 1 1 2.85 

French ■ 5.84 6.99 7. 78 

German 10.51 12.00 14.33 

Algebra 45-40 54.64 56.29 

Physics 22.21 2.08 19.04 

Chemistry 10.10 8.95 7.72 

Geology .... 4.80 3.61 

Physiology .... 3i'94 27.42 

185 



preparing for college were preparing to enter the classical course, 
and 49 per cent, the scientific; in 1895-96, 52 per cent, were prepar- 
ing for the classical, and 48 per cent, for the scientific; in 1900-01, 
56 per cent, were preparing to enter the classical and 44 per cent, 
the scientific. The number of competent science teachers is now 
short of the demand, though language teachers are far in excess 
of it. 

Coeducation has its share in forming sentiment and shaping in- 
struction. The high school must suit its curriculum to the needs 
of its pupils; it has to give what is demanded. Since girls are in 
a decided majority, and the number of women teachers is in excess 
of the men, it is not strange that cultural courses receive the most 
attention. 

Below the high school a still higher percentage of teachers are 
women, A circumstance that shows the effect of this on school 
work occurred to our notice a few years ago in a certain county of 
California. The attempt was made to introduce a little elementary 
physics into the ninth grade of grammar schools. The community 
was mainly rural; and it was thought that since most of the boys 
left school from that grade, it would be well to teach them the 
simple mechanical laws of pulley, lever, wheel and axle, screw, etc., 
to apply to their farm experience. It was a laudable design; but 
it was a failure. The teachers were women, competent above the 
average, but they were not interested in that side of life, and they 
simply could not, except in rare instances, make a success of it. 
A flood of protest poured in from them to the county superinten- 
dent, and the subject was shortly discontinued. In view of the 
situation we should not be surprised that almost anywhere in our 
schools the aesthetic has the preference over the practical — that 
poetry and literature receive more attention than arithmetic; paint- 
ing and art than mechanical drawing; and music and the languages 
than physics, chemistry, and industrial training, 

Mr. Calvin W. Woodward, President of the St. Louis Board 
of Education, has made a study of the causes which impel pupils, 
and especially boys, to drop out of school between the ages of twelve 
and fifteen. Circumstances are seldom such as to render it neces- 
sary for them to go to work for wages. Mr, Woodward says : "My 
deliberate conclusion, after a careful study of the matter, is that 
the prime causes for the abnormal withdrawals are: First, a lack 
of interest on the part of the pupils; and secondly, a lack on the 
part of parents of a just appreciation of the education now offered, 

186 



and a dissatisfaction that we do not offer instruction and training 
of a more practical character. The pupils become tired of the work 
they have on hand, and they see in the grades above them no suf- 
ficiently attractive features to invite them. They become discon- 
tented and neglectful; failure follows, they get behind, and then 
they stop. As for the boys from twelve and fifteen years old, 
their discontent is not unnatural. They are conscious of growing 
powers, passions, and tastes which the school does not recognize. 
They find the restraints of the schoolroom and grounds irksome. 
Their controlling interests are not in committing to memory the 
printed page; not even the arithmetic serves to reconcile them to 
school hours and school studies. They long to grasp things with 
their hands; they burn to test the strength of materials and the 
magnitude of forces; to match their cunning with the cunning of 
practical men and of nature. The dissatisfaction of parents springs 
from several sources. The discontent of the boy or girl contributes 
to the feeling that the cost of books and the loss of a child's labor 
are too great price to pay for what the child is getting. As for 
going to the high school it seems to the parent to be out of the 
question. The school is too far off, too costly in books, in dress, 
and car fare, and not sufficiently practical in its course of study." 
Mr. Woodward here recognizes the popular feeling that the schools 
are impractical. He has not noted the preponderance of women 
teachers as a contributing cause. 

Women as we have seen are interested in the aesthetic rather 
than the practical or industrial side of life. In the boy's mind the 
grammar school, with its corps of women teachers comes to as- 
sociate education with the interests of women only. This, I be- 
lieve, is one reason why so few take the step from grammar to 
high school. At this age boys begin to notice differences of sex. 
They are proud of their masculinity. The voice changes, they 
are conscious of superior strength, and they love to show their 
muscle. They cultivate the gruffer ways of men, and often learn 
to smoke and chew, not because they want to be vicious, but be- 
cause men use tobacco, and women do not, and they want to em- 
phasize the fact that they are men. From fourteen to twenty they 
love football. It is a game that calls for masculine strength and 
masculine courage. Everything that is distinctly masculine is ad- 
mired and imitated; everything womanish is despised. Few boys 
at this age are ready to admit that women are the equals of men. 
Even the mother's influence wanes. Her word is not final in every- 

187 



thing. She is only a woman and cannot understand all that men 
should do. 

So it is not strange that the woman teacher is so often at a 
disadvantage with high school boys. She must be of a decidedly 
strong personality to appeal to him. He sees intuitively that the 
tastes and preferences of women are different from those of men, 
and he is not at all ready to take a woman-teacher's advice in choos- 
ing a course of action for himself. 

We believe thoroughly in coeducation; but coeducation when 
both sexes are educated by one does not exist. The living teacher 
and the ideal his personality presents is more effective than any- 
thing else in holding students in school. The lady teacher cannot 
present such an ideal to young people of the opposite sex. With all 
the growth in number of schools and teachers during the last half 
century, there are fewer men teaching today than there were in 
i860. On the other hand, the number of women teachers has gone 
up from less than 5,000 in i860 to about 20,000. As a result, and 
in spite of our boasted progress in education, there are fewer school 
children enrolled today in porportion to the number of school age 
than there were in i860. If we would hold boys in school between 
the ages of twelve and fifteen, we must appeal to the more prac- 
tical bent of a boy's mind, and the ideals of manhood which attract 
him.^ 

It was noticed above that women, by their choice of studies 
in the university evidence very slight interest in political matters 
as compared with the interest exhibited by men. And yet they 
teach civics in a majority of schools. It will be interesting to en- 
deavor to learn what the effect of this teaching is. 

There is no doubt that we owe our extensive system of free 
public schools in great part to faith in the service of education as 
a training for citizenship.^ Webster was a firm believer in the 
efficacy of popular education to ensure the triumph of democratic 
principles. "We do not," said he, "expect all men to be philosophers 
and statesmen, but we confidently trust, and our expectation of 
the duration of our system of government rests upon that trust, that, 
by the diffusion of general knowledge and good and virtuous senti- 
ments, the political fabric may be secured, as well against open 
violence and overthrow, as against the slow, but sure undermining 
of licentiousness." It is with this faith that education has power 



^ See accompanying diagram. 

^ See educational provisions in our state constitutions. 

188 



855 



20.000 
17.500 
15,000 
12,500 

10,000 

7,500 

5,000 



m 1900 



NUMBER OF 
WOMEN 

TEACHERS. 



NUMBER OF 
MEN TEACHERS. 



GR'TIW"^ SINCE BEFORE I860. 



.500,000 



1,000,000 



NUMBER OF 
CHILDREN OF 
5CHOOL AGE 6-2 



500,000 




NUMBER OF 
CHILDREN EN 
ROLLED. 



^ SCHOOL 
AGE y^HAT THE GAP 
BETWBND WITH THE 



GROW 
FIRST 



ER OIRLS 
LATER, 



N THE 




SHOWING GROWTH IN NUMBER OF CHILDREN OF SCHOOL 
AGE AND OF PUPILS ENROLLED. IT IS NOTICEABLE THAT THE GAP 
BETWEEN THESE LINES WIDENS TO CORRESPOND WITH THE 
GROWTH OF WOMEN TEACHERS. BOYS OUTNUMBER GIRLS IN THE 
FIRST YEARS BUT ARE GREATLY - OUTNUMBERED LATER. 



...i^AM^MMlMI 



MMiMM 



\yT\ wf) 



*Cj5 




nnns 



mO.S^.Vm J 



.\0O€j ! 



3: 



ST 



to prepare for the duties and responsibilities of citizenship in a Re- 
public, that government has provided so generously for the public 
school system in taxation and grants of land. 

Since Webster's time the rapid growth of urban communities 
has created a most extensive and intricate system of city govern- 
ment calling for detailed knowledge. To be merely a good man is 
not now sufficient to be a good citizen. Good citizenship requires 
more than "the diffusion of general knowledge and good and vir- 
tuous sentiments" if the tide of municipal corruption is to be turned 
back. Here the school fails. The civic function of our school sys- 
tem has no doubt suffered greatly from the fact that teachers are 
so little interested in current politics. Fear of "mixing in politics" 
has held the teachers aloof from matters of this kind ; and the teach- 
ing of civil government is often a perfunctory task. It can hardly 
be expected that those who are denied the right of suffrage should 
speak ivith authority on the duties of citizenship. Few teachers are 
acquainted with matters at issue in local elections; and few under- 
stand the real inner workings of party politics. Political patronage, 
the caucus, the convention, and the primaries are little more than 
abstractions to most of them. It would be interesting to know how 
far the widespread apathy of educated people as to local politics 
could be remedied by more adequate instruction in the schools. Gen- 
eral education and enlightenment, no doubt, has much virtue in 
effecting good government. The entrance of women into public 
school work, by extending the system to a point beyond what the 
public finance would have permitted if equal intelligence had been 
secured from men teachers, has, as we have said, been of inestimable 
value in promoting this general enlightenment. But so far as edu- 
cating to an intelligent interest in political and economic matters 
of a technical character is concerned, our educational system has 
not yet done all that should be expected of it. 

If there were a steady growth in public sentiment regarding 
extension of the franchise, such as induced the legislatures of a half 
dozen of our newer and less conservative States to grant women 
full suffrage, this weakness of civic education would tend to correct 
itself. But the movement has been met by a counter movement 
among women themselves. An anti-suffrage association has been 
active in Massachusetts for a number of years; in 1896 the New 
York State Association Opposed to Women Suffrage was formed, 
and in two years it had no less than twenty thousand members, a 
standing committee of a hundred, and branches in various cities. 

189 



The Illinois Association, founded in 1897, has issued a circular from 
which the following is quoted : 

"A little reflection shows that the kind of intelligence which the 
law-makers should possess, the knowledge of practical things of 
the outside world, such as currency, banking, franchises granted to 
corporations, the general control of vast commercial and manufac- 
turing interests, with other details of practical life, not easily enu- 
merated, are affairs which lie wholly within the affairs of men, and 
which it would be a sad waste of energy for women in general to 
become familiar with. . . . Does it follow that women on the 
whole are inferior to men? By no means. In her own domain, 
which includes the most vital, the most spiritual, the most progres- 
sive elements of life, woman is as much man's superior as he is hers 
in outer and material things." 

Through their clubs, women have been active of late in munic- 
ipal affairs. During the last decade they have aided materially 
in bringing about reforms in education, public charity and sanita- 
tion in several cities, notably in Chicago, Washington, Denver, and 
in Louisiana. It is to be hoped that they will occupy a still larger 
part of their leisure with problems of municipal reform, and that a 
scientific discussion of such matters may get into the higher grades 
of schools. 

The call for more men in public schools should be a call for 
more able men. So long as the marked superiority among women 
teachers continues, so long they should continue to be preferred. 
The difficulty lies in the fact that promotion and tenure of office 
are very uncertain, and salaries rarely sufficient to secure men of 
first-rate ability. The average salary of men teachers in the United 
States is higher than that of women ; but it is still wretchedly low. 
It amounts to only $46.53 a month for seven months and six days, 
or about $337.00 a year. According to Mayo Smith, the average 
wages of operatives skilled and unskilled were, in 1890, for males 
above sixteen, $498,00. Carnegie says, in his "Empire of Business" : 
"In one of the largest steel works last year the average wages per 
man, including all paid-by-the-day laborers, boys and mechanics, 
were $4.00 a day for 311 days." This would be $1,244.00 a year. 
Compare this with the $337.00 the male teacher gets, and judge of 
the average capacity our schools are likely to attract. The United 
States census for 1890 gives the mean annual wages of all laborers, 
including men, women and children, white and black, skilled and 
unskilled, as $437.00; one hundred dollars more than the average 

190 



male teacher receives. If the salary, low as it is, were the only- 
drawback with which the teacher has to contend, he would be com- 
paratively happy. He holds a political office, and though it is not 
usually under the system of party politics, like all political offices 
not under civil service, it is exceedingly insecure. In the great 
cities, positions are comparatively permanent, but among the smaller 
towns every year brings its list of changes, and the teachers go 
bumping about from Podunkville to Daisy Hollow, often spending 
half a year's salary before they get a situation again, if in the annual 
shuffle they should succeed in getting any at all. If they do not 
procure a position, the women teachers go home to their parents 
for a time, and then try it again next year ; and the men, if they have 
any energy, go into other lines of business, leaving the inexperienced 
and unfit in the profession. 

To sum up. Civic and economic considerations make it desirable 
that there should be men teachers equal in number to the women 
in the upper grammar and high school grades, so that boys may 
come under the instruction of men for a time at least, before quit- 
ting school, to the end that education may subserve the interests of 
both sexes. Competent men can only be secured by an increase 
in salaries and a more secure tenure of office. 
The; Chairman: 

Principal J. E. Armstrong, of the Englewood High School, 
Chicago, will present the next paper upon "the growing encroach- 
ment OE THE DEMANDS OE SOCIAL LlEE UPON SERIOUS STUDY." 

Principal Armstrong: 

I doubt if the schoolmaster of today has to face a more vexing 
problem than that of securing serious, quiet, consecutive study on 
the part of his pupils, if indeed he is able to secure a little of it 
for himself. The irresistible forces of evolution have been at work 
transforming society until our homes are but places where we sleep 
a brief portion of the morning hours. After eating a hurried morsel 
of factory-made breakfast, we run to the train before our children 
are awake. We eat our noonday meal at the lunch counter, and 
frequently our evening dinner at the club or the cafe. We read the 
headlines of the morning paper and look at the cartoons. Tired 
out with the rush of business, we must have amusement and enter- 
tainment in the evening. If perchance we remain at home, we can- 
not be further vexed and annoyed by the supervision of the chil- 
dren's studies. The mother, too, has her share of cares. There 
are the household duties and the shopping in the morning, and there 

191 



may be the club or calls in the afternoon. Then the club dinners, 
balls and lectures, and where is there any time left for supervision 
of the study time of the school children in her program? 

In the homes of the laboring classes the opportunities for quiet 
study are usually just as bad. The parents seldom understand the 
necessity for study outside of the school buildings and either require 
their children to do some manual labor or allow them to run on the 
streets. 

Does anyone ask why we cannot secure more home study? Let 
him ask rather if it is possible to secure any home study at all. 
Among the causes that have led to the loss of serious study I would 
put first the loss of the family home life. The modern flat building, 
the family hotel, the apartment building, and all forms of clubs 
are chiefly responsible for this. What can be the child's concept 
of home when the moving van or the storage warehouse are the 
chief abiding places of the household effects. This year the family 
lives on the north side, last year it lived on the south side, and the 
year before on the west side. Next year they will store their furni- 
ture and board at the hotel. Add to this such monstrosities of fur- 
niture as bookcases with bed attachments, bath tubs under Daven- 
ports, and we may indeed ask what has become of the home. Com- 
pare all with the New England home, where many generations 
of a family were born, lived and died in the same house. 

With no fixed abiding place, with very little if any thought or 
care expended upon conveniences or even the necessities with no 
thought on the part of parents about providing the conditions re- 
quired for serious study, no one needs to expect that the children 
will devote much time to it. Society is becoming very complex and 
highly organized, and the demands upon our leisure time are so 
urgent that every one needs to weigh carefully what interests shall 
have any share of his attention. The opportunities for doing good 
in the many humanitarian, charitable, religious, social and educa- 
tional organizations were never so great as now. Unless one is 
utterly selfish or indifferent to the good that can be done and is 
being done in these organizations, he cannot escape participation 
in some of them. They are all doing splendid work, and they de- 
serve the assistance of us all. But what of the home life and 
especially the education of the children when all our leisure is given 
to these organizations? There is not one of them that has not 
helped to rob the home of its leisure and thereby deprived the chil- 
dren of their share of attention. 

192 



If clubs and flats and churches and charitable organizations and 
places of amusement are responsible for this loss in the home life, 
should we advocate the abolition of these institutions? It would 
be as impossible as to turn the moon backward in her course, unless 
we can take advantage of the same evolutionary forces that have 
brought them into existence. These social conditions are the result 
of our community life. They have their origin in the needs of 
society, and will pass away only when the needs of society change 
or we discover where we have gone to such an excess that we have 
lost better things. We cannot return to the simple home life unless 
we can forget the telephone, the electric light, steam power and a 
thousand other inventions. Women's clubs have opened large fields 
of intellectual and philanthropic activities never dreamed of in the 
old homes, yet they are the lineal descendants of the "sewing circle." 
Society needs the organized and correlated efforts of women to re- 
move evils of long standing. Men were too busy or too selfish to 
give time or thought to such problems. Men's clubs serve a dif- 
ferent purpose in the life of the careworn, overworked men, and, 
while the home may suffer for the absence of the father, it often 
suffered by his presence before there were such clubs. 

I am not so sure of the necessity of some of the fraternal organi- 
zations. A boys' club, to my mind, is a very different thing from a 
boys' fraternity. The fraternity offers an opportunity to do a secret 
act of which the individual would be ashamed if his acts were sub- 
ject to the scrutiny of the public. It is largely due to the desire of 
young people to imitate adults : and parents are often weak enough, 
or thoughtless enough, to accept the argument that minute doses 
of adult life are always good for the child; hence the little cigar, 
the little dress suit, and the little love affair. 

During the last century the Sunday School has become a great 
factor in the moral and religious training of the child. The good 
it is doing cannot be measured, but its demands upon the leisure 
of the child and the parent are great. Possibly the Sunday School 
concert and the sociable have encroached too far upon the home. 
I have known many young men, who, with the best of motives, spent 
all their leisure time in conducting the business of a Sunday School 
or a Young Men's Christian Association, providing reading rooms, 
lecture courses and gymnasiums, etc., but who had never a mo- 
ment left for enjoying any of those same advantages for them- 
selves. Where should the line be drawn between the home and 
society ? 

193 



Then there is the whole circle of amusements and recreations. 
The more intense the whirl of business, the more need is there for 
recreation, but parties and dances are like athletics ; they are apt to 
become so all absorbing that there is no place left for the more 
substantial diet. Contests of all kinds are fascinating to youth, 
doubtless because of the instincts handed down to us from a warrior 
ancestry. These instincts cannot be suppressed without injury to 
the subject, but they need to be directed and controlled, or they 
become cancers that eat away the real substance of the intellect. 

The business world more than all these, with its goads and 
threats, with its immense prizes and allurements, with offered power 
and position over against starvation and disgrace, plunges the 
greater portion of the community into a mad rush for wealth. No 
wonder so many pledge their souls to Mephistopheles. The child 
that could not defend himself against the blows and jeers of a 
smaller child because he was standing on a penny is the natural 
product of such an age. I have known young men who conducted 
a business that earned more money for them while attending high 
school than many of their teachers were receiving as salaries after 
years of preparation and experience. Their career in school was 
usually a brief one, as might be expected. I have known young 
men who could not recall the past tense of the verb to do, or com- 
pute the area of a triangle, but who could tell you who broke all 
the athletic records in minutes and seconds, feet and inches, for 
years. These things are not strange. They are the product of an 
age that is affected with business insanity, and no quiet home life 
to correct it. They are illustrations of the law that those things 
that are kept before the mind most persistently become its substance. 

If the evolution of society has brought about these organizations 
and institutions that have robbed the home of its leisure and quiet, 
if the parents cannot direct their children so as to make them more 
serious students of books, how can we hope to produce a race of 
soundly intellectual beings? 

I believe we shall solve this problem only by organizing society 
still further, and, while the home may be partially restored by making 
our homes more attractive for the young, and by making more of 
the home life, yet we shall need to provide conditions for study that 
the average home cannot provide. The family living room, where 
the small children romp, cry, and quarrel, or allure by the sweet 
charms of childhood, is a poor place for serious study; and the bed 
chamber by its associations invites to repose instead of effort. Par- 

194 



ents who understand little of the needs of quiet study request that 
their children be excused from school when not reciting, and thus 
rob them of the only chance there is left. Many of these excuses 
run as follows : "Please excuse John from school the last hour 
as he has nothing to do and I need him at home." Mary tells her 
fond mamma that those who have a study hour go home if the 
parent will ask it, so she brings a request to be dismissed. 

If parents could be brought to see the necessity of allowing 
their children to study more in school under the care of the teacher, 
where quiet is preserved and the atmosphere of study prevails, 
much could be accomplished. Go into the reading rooms of our 
public libraries, and we can scarcely resist the impulse to read : nor 
can one disturb others without feeling that the very walls cry out 
against it. If we can provide quiet study rooms, well equipped 
with reference books, maps, and other study helps, have them 
properly heated and ventilated, and if we can put over these, teachers 
who can "speak softly and carry a big stick," we shall be able to 
offer some of the conditions of quiet study not usually found in the 
home. We shall then need to organize parents' clubs so that we 
may persuade parents that their children should be allowed and 
required to remain under guidance of the school. 

More should be made of the pupils' study hour. We have 
laid so much stress upon attention in recitation, even going so far 
as to make the recitation a sort of peep-show entertainment, that 
the pupil feels that there is nothing to be done but to listen. It is 
indeed a great accomplishment to become a good listener, but with- 
out personal effort, initiative, and investigation, there can be but 
little progress. Our high schools in large cities certainly have 
much to contend with to offset the excitement and allurements 
away from books. 

Let the high school begin its first lesson with methods of study, 
and feel that that is its most important task in resisting the en- 
croachments of a highly complex social organization. All fussing 
and fuming, lecturing about conduct and announcements of every 
kind should be barred from the study hour so that all may feel 
the influence of silence. Cultivate the habit of devoting a certain 
time every day to a given task until the automatic machinery is set 
in operation. Strengthen this further by dispensing with the plan 
in vogue in our city schools of meeting most classes but four times 
a week. Let the class meet every day at a certain hour, either 
for a recitation or for a laboratory hour with the teacher. 

195 



In short, we need to give our best efforts to establishing the 
habit of systematic, regular, quiet, persevering study, and to fur- 
nish the conditions necessary for it in our schools. 
The Chairman : 

The last formal paper of the morning will be read by Principal 
Henry L. Boltwood, of the Evanston Township High School, 
Evanston, 111. The topic is, "the growing tendency to imitate 
the characteristic features oe college life; fraternities^ 
development oe competitive sports, etc." 
Principal Boltwood: 

The school education of all Christendom commenced with the 
convent, the religious orders and the cathedral schools, and ulti- 
mately the university and the college grew out of the cathedral 
school. The common school is a much later development. Even 
in Massachusetts the college is older than the public school. 

Education in early days was the prerogative of the priests, and 
not only in Christendom, but in India, Egypt, and the empires of 
the Euphrates Valley, priests were the men of learning. It is not 
quite a century since "benefit of clergy," or legal limitation of 
penalties because of ability to read, was formally abolished in Eng- 
land. For many centuries, anyone who could read was supposed 
to belong to the learned or priestly caste, and, as being a member 
of a privileged order, was entitled to be tried by ecclesiastical law. 
The jurisdiction of civil courts was denied and defied. The Con- 
stitutions of Clarendon in 1164 mark an era in English independ- 
ence of priestly control, but even afterwards, in all except the gravest 
criminal offenses, the church retained its right of trial and punish- 
ment. 

Few, probably, realize how largely school and college life to- 
day is shaped by the usages and traditions of the monastery and 
of ecclesiastics. The dormitory system, early morning prayers, the 
exclusion of married students, the prominence still given to logic 
and linguistics in courses of study, are the survival, not of the fittest, 
but of the long established customs of the cloister. More generally 
existing, even in State Universities, and in others entirely divorced 
from the church, is the notion that college students are a privileged 
class, and as such, exempt from amenability to civil law, and too 
often from the laws of common civility. At any rate, students are 
prone to consider that they are amenable to their faculty only, 
whatever may be the nature of the offenses they commit. This 
notion is encouraged in Germany and England by the employment 

196 



of university police, entirely distinct from the regular police of 
the university cities. The German Universities have even their own 
prisons. From the same source comes also the feeling of superiority 
which leads to the usual bitter enmity and frequent quarrels be- 
tween town and gown. Hence also the fagging of the English pub- 
lic schools and the hazing of newcomers in our own colleges. In 
the church schools of early days, the neophyte was legally made 
to be an inferior, and was the virtual slave of those whose years 
outnumbered his. In Yale College, a century ago, the college laws 
required a freshman to take off his hat to an approaching senior, 
and to remain uncovered until he received gracious permission to 
cover. He was expressly required to do errands for seniors upon 
demand, and the only excuse accepted for non-compliance was that 
he was doing errands for another senior. Hazing was tolerated, 
or even encouraged, to make the freshman know his place. Humility 
was good for the discipline of his soul, and the higher classes took 
good care of his soul's welfare in this respect. In college life and 
college conscience, outrages, which under civil law are punished 
with fine and imprisonment and subject the offenders to public 
contempt, are regarded as matters of boasting, and a false com- 
munity sentiment shields offenders from exposure and punishment. 

This idea of special class privileges reaches outside the college 
into the lower schools, and the rowdyism, vulgarity and thefts 
of college men are glorified. A college athletic contest is too often 
made the excuse for gambling, drunkenness, theft, and open rob- 
bery, plundering restaurants, defrauding railroads, interfering with 
the rights of the traveling public, breaking up theaters and mobbing 
lecturers. This is not churchly, but clannish — the following of the 
multitude to do evil — all the while, however, clinging to the old 
notion that we, the students, are a privileged class ; and the laws 
that bind the humdrum, outside multitude are not for us — the aris- 
tocracy of education. What others call meanness, rascality and 
cowardly brutality, college lads call fun — student's fun — "Boys will 
be boys" und so weiter. 

A gentleman who was traveling in Germany once, at a hotel, 
called for a certain wine. The v^^aiter brought him another kind, 
as was plainly to be seen by the label. He called attention to the 
mistake. "I beg your pardon, sir," said the waiter. He took the 
bottle to the sideboard, stuck on another label, and brought the 
same bottle to the gentleman who had watched the whole proceeding. 

To call pilfering of spoons, dishes, sofa cushions and signs f^m 

197 



is to put on a false label, but it does not change the character of the 
act. 

"The ten commandments will not budge, 
And stealing will continue stealing." 

There was a proverb current in France in the days of chivalry. 
"Noblesse oblige;" our rank constrains us. Because we belong to 
a privileged class we are under obligation to be noble. Do our 
college youths seek any such high ideal? Is genuine manliness 
exalted above physical strength; self-denial above indulgence; right 
above might; law above lawlessness? 

Whatever may be the intellectual, moral, or ethical condition 
of the college and university, of necessity it will influence the pupils 
of the secondary schools. College men train them, talk with them, 
and influence them. In proportion as more of their pupils go to 
the higher schools, the more they are influenced and dominated 
by them. The same feeling of class or caste pervades them. The 
hazing, the mischief, the betting on athletics, the use of unscrupulous 
means to secure good marks or to keep on athletic teams the dis- 
honest men, whose chief merit is their proficiency in athletics, the 
lowering of the standard of honesty in examinations, all have a 
corrupting influence upon the preparatory schools. Eighteen pupils 
from a single school were detected in cheating at a college entrance 
examination. Is it probable that they would have attempted it 
had they not believed that college students were not above such a 
thing ? 

Among the bad things which the college is turning over to the 
secondary schools are the secret societies, which are multiplying 
to an extent that calls for the serious attention of all educators. 
Within ten years there have sprung up in the public high schools at 
least a dozen Greek letter societies which are cheap imitations of 
college fraternities, especially in the things wherein the college so- 
cieties are most at fault. From personal experience, I find much 
harm and little good in these school societies. They encourage 
clannishness and self-conceit and are subversive of school and class 
spirit. Loyalty to the society takes the place of loyalty to the school. 
Each new society affords pretexts for additional social functions 
and extra expenses. School athletics suffer from the attempts of 
societies to give their own members prominent positions. Ridicu- 
lous and even dangerous initiations are too often practiced, and 
scholarship is left out of the question. They are utterly foreign 

198 



to the equality which ought to exist in a public school where 
all class distinctions should be laid aside, and nothing should count 
but merit. The self-conscious air of pride with which fraternity 
boys and girls snub or ignore the "outside barbarians" who are 
often their intellectual and moral superiors is simply exasperating. 
In this direction the girls are worse than the boys, or perhaps, the 
girls feel the social slights more keenly. Mothers with tears in 
their eyes tell me of the heartless and cruel ways in which their 
daughters are slighted and snubbed by society girls. 

College secret societies are made up of those who average four 
years older than the pupils of the secondary schools. Their mem- 
bers come from different and distant communities, and the societies 
give them a fellowship which may be valuable. At the end of their 
four years, their members separate. But in the public school, where 
all the pupils are from one community, have lived together before 
and will remain together after their school life, societies are not 
needed and are out of place. 

College athletics and college secret societies are the special fea- 
tures of college life which are injuring the secondary schools. The 
glory of the athlete has dimmed the glory of the scholar. Brawn 
is superior to brain in winning renown for the college and the in- 
dividual. The muscular dunce or laggard, who can be kept up to 
a minimum grade of scholarship only by persistent coaching and 
pressure and by much hard winking on the part of the faculty, is 
glorified. Five columns of newspaper glory to a football game be- 
tween Yale and Harvard; a scant twenty lines to an intercollegiate 
debate. A great athletic victory is made the occasion for a general 
college debauch. Not always, but far too often. A horse is a 
noble animal, but horse-dealers and horse-racers are likely to be 
corrupted by horses. Athletes are noble animals if they do not allow 
the animal to run away with the man. A boy's heroes are heroes 
who can do one thing and but one. The man's hero ought to be 
great in many ways. 

If the college boys and girls are sensible, earnest, full of high 
ideals, full of contempt for meanness, dishonesty, idleness, and ex- 
travagance, loyal to the best ideals and scornful of low delights 
and practices, and willing to live laborious days to attain the high 
standard which college life should set before them, the secondary 
schools will catch the spirit and go to college full of right pur- 
poses and exalted ideals. If, truly or falsely, secondary pupils be- 
lieve that college life is principally made up of pranks, dissipations, 

199 



tobacco and athletics, society functions and evasions of rules and 
duties, the secondary school will suffer because it will imitate the 
college, and the college will in time suffer from a lowering of the 
character of its recruits. 

The: Chairman : 

The next formal number upon the program is the luncheon at 
one o'clock. Between that time and this we have fifty minutes which 
may well be devoted to a discussion of any one of the topics that 
have been presented since the last informal discussion. In these 
discussions we shall hold to the five-minute limit. No names have 
been presented as yet ; we will recognize anyone from the floor. 

Mr. Western, of Chicago. 

Mr. We;ste;rn: 

I do not wish to occupy any particular amount of time, but 
desire to express my heartfelt approbation of the last production to 
which we have listened. If we could have that document published 
and sent broadcast over this land, I think it would do more good 
than everything else that has occurred at this convention. If there 
is anything that is injuring the schools and the colleges it is this vast 
amount of alleged athletics — mostly football with all the con- 
comitants we have listened to. I hope the report will be published. 

The Chairman : 

Professor Clark, of Northwestern University. 
Proi'ESSor Clark : 

In criticism of the remarks of Principal Sandwick, if I under- 
stood him correctly, he assumed that the study of English is a cul- 
tural study. That depends on what you mean. If he means the 
study of literature, I suppose we might all agree, and I am sorry 
to say that in most high schools most of the teaching in English is 
that of literature. But if he means the study of the art of English 
composition I submit it is the most practical subject in that list. 
What shall it profit a man if he know all chemistry, and all physics, 
and all political science, and all the cultural studies, so-called, and 
be unable to say what he means clearly and forcibly and to stop 
when he gets through? 

The Chairman : 

Professor Patten, of Northwestern University. 

Proi^essor Patten: 

With regard to something that has been stated concerning the 
teaching of religion in the high school, it has been assumed that 

200 



accurate thinking and all thinking is religious, and that, therefore, 
if a student is only taught to think he is doing religious work. I 
very seriously question that. Is the burglar who examines care- 
fully the mechanism of a bank safe and who studies the lock and 
lays his plans profoundly — is he thinking religiously? He is think- 
ing, but it is toward an immoral end. All thinking is not religious 
thinking, although as beings made to search truth we are in the line, 
broadly speaking, of religious investigation ; yet much thinking may 
be toward immoral ends. 

Again, it has been assumed that no teacher ought to stand before 
a school and say "good things" — things that are "goody." But I 
do believe that there come times when a teacher must lead his pupils 
to discriminate morally. He must lead them to the development of 
their consciences. I came across a student who had not been doing 
right, and when I showed him that he said, "I never knew that 
was not right. I was brought up where those things were supposed 
to be correct." Unless I had told that man he was morally wrong 
he might have gone on. So there are times when, it seems to me, 
there should be strong utterances with regard to the fundamental 
principles of morality and religion. To assume that the students 
are getting along religiously and to assume that they will develop 
religiously without saying anything about religion is about the same 
thing as to teach mechanics without saying anything concerning the 
laws of motion. 
The Chairman: 

Mrs. May Wright Sewall, of Indianapolis. 
Mrs. Se;wai.i,: 

I do not wish to divert the discussion from religion, but I do 
wish to come back to one of the points made in considering the 
proposition of "too many women teachers." I sympathize with 
that proposition. I think that there is a disparity in the proportion 
of men and women who teach, that is a serious menace to the 
best results. I feel that one of the reasons for the decadence of 
interest in public affairs is, that the teaching of American history 
and civics is so largely in the hands of a disfranchised class. I have 
used that phrase not to introduce upon this platform the discussion 
of one question in which I am greatly interested, which is probably 
tabooed here, but because I think it perfectly ridiculous to discuss 
the effects of the teaching of civics in our schools by women, and 
imply in the discussion that these are to be remedied only by dis- 
missing the women and by giving their places to men. The very 

201 



same conditions which have developed in men a sense of responsi- 
bility that enables them to be interested in public questions and to 
be good teachers of the subjects which are involved in such ques- 
tions — the same conditions which imbue men with a sense of per- 
sonal responsibility at the caucus and at the polls, will bring women 
into the same degree of consciousness and intelligence, so that they 
will be able to teach history, civics and economics with that sense 
of obligation to the public which these subjects demand. I should 
feel myself a criminal to have sat silent here, and not have brought 
this aspect forward, because teachers, both men and women, should 
see the validity of the claim of American women for enfranchise- 
ment — a claim that should make its strongest appeal to this pro- 
fession. 

I cannot leave this subject without stating that my study of the 
statistics of our social, sociological, and economic conditions at the 
present time, leads me to a very different conclusion in regard to the 
numbers of women who are of necessity earning their living, from 
that which has been expressed here this morning. I think there was 
a great understatement, probably not an intentional one — when it 
was said "that a small proportion of women who teach are of neces- 
sity working." To say that the absence of necessity to earn a living 
is the reason for women's lack of interest in economic questions is 
not justified by the facts. I believe that one reason for women's 
having taken so largely to courses of literature and other aesthetic 
subjects in the universities is because of the opening that there is 
for them through teaching these subjects to make a living. When 
economics and science give them the same welcome, women will be 
ready to pursue these subjects for the same practical end. 

The Chairman : 

President Miller, of Ruskin University. 

Presidejnt Mii.i.i;r: 

There is a logical relation between the first formal topic and 
the last. I think the first paper might have been a discussion of 
woman suffrage and manual training and industrial training as well 
as a discussion of too many women in the schools. We seem to 
think in discussing educational problems that we as teachers are 
creatures of circumstances, and that we must act in our environment 
without any thought of changing it. It is absolutely illogical. If 
the school teachers cannot have any opinion or influence in regard 
to their environment they ought to go out of business. If we as 
school teachers would advocate the extension of the franchise to 

202 



women this matter of civics would correct itself. We are afraid 
to do it. 

A Sunday school teacher once asked his class whom they would 
like to see first when they got to Heaven, and one boy said "Goliath." 
His hero was a great monster of physical strength. That ideal can- 
not be gotten out by ignoring it. It is there and you have to reckon 
with it. You cannot abolish "Goliath" but you can get a substitute 
for him. Through manual training and industrial training you will 
carry the boy through the development of physical power to the 
physical manhood beyond. You will thus meet the ideal of the boy 
who worships "Goliath." But we are afraid to do it. We have not 
the courage. The matter of environment would take care of itself 
if we would change our industrial system so as to have an industrial 
democracy. 

Now as . to the proportion of girls and boys in the schools, if 
we are going to correct that matter and get more boys into the 
schools we must get something into the school that will attract 
the boys. For the last three years, in Ruskin College, we have 
allowed both boys and girls to earn their board and lodging, and 
instead of having three-fourths of our attendance made up of girls 
as in the high schools, three-fourths of our attendance has been 
made up of boys. 

The question was asked, How are we going to get more men 
teachers? The answer was higher salaries. You have to convince 
the taxpayers that there is a necessity for a higher salary. That 
is not easily done. How can you get men to become teachers if 
they don't want to? You can make the public schools more attrac- 
tive to the boys by introducing manual and industrial training and 
you can make the teaching profession attractive to men in the same 
way. They will go into it and thus you will obtain the equilibrium. 

We ought not to tamely submit to our environment but to put 
ourselves to work to advocate a different environment and thus we 
will be able to develop the ideal school. 

The; Chairman : 

Mr. Wells, of Wisconsin. 
Mr. WeIvLS: 

There has been no discussion of the number in the college who 
attend any formal instruction in religion. There are very serious and 
practical difificulties in the way of giving formal instruction in the 
high schools, but that part of the discussion has been omitted. For 
instance, in Wisconsin the constitution provides that there shall be 

203 



no formal religious instruction, and that there shall be no sectarian 
instruction. Now, the case before the Supreme Court was in regard 
to the reading of the Bible in the schools. The court held that 
reading is instruction. The next point was that reading King 
James' version of the Bible is sectarian instruction. Now, if you 
are going to give formal instruction, this instruction is going to be 
given by people who read one or another version of the Bible. It 
has been discussed here by college presidents and professors who 
think they can teach without bias. It may be some of them can, 
but it is not wholly apparent in the discussion. It does not appear 
in the writings of our historians that they can write without bias. 
In formal instruction I am sure there is liable to be bias. These 
people, some of them in the high school of less attainment and less 
experience in the world than those who have discussed these papers, 
must give this instruction. They are familiar with the King James' 
version and their instruction will be colored by their knowledge and 
familiarity with that version. There are some who do not know 
that version but who know the Douai version and their instruction 
will be colored by that, and therefore there will be unintentional 
sectarian bias. In other words the majority of the people in the 
high school are Protestants and their instruction is sure to be biased. 
The purpose of the public school is to be equally hospitable and 
equally agreeable to all who attend it. I think that it will be practi- 
cally impossible to give anything like formal instruction in religion 
without bias. Sectarian instruction is inevitable. I am not going 
to say that no formal instruction shall be attempted in the school. 
I had hoped that someone would talk on that side of the question. 
Our discussions have been away up in the air and have not touched 
ground in these things. The practical difficulty of getting any 
formal instruction in religion in the schools without sectarian bias 
is a very serious problem, so serious that it will well nigh exclude 
it from the schools. We have a library system in our schools. It 
was started with the best intention. It had not been in operation 
long - before the Catholics and Lutherans were outraged. Their 
customs and practices had been attacked. There was an outcry that 
would have killed it but for a change in the policy of those directing 
the library. There is an abundant supply of books that are unob- 
jectionable to people of all sects and the library has grown and 
prospered wonderfully with the exclusion of certain books. This 
library system was nearly ruined by leaving only a few supposedly 
competent persons to select the books, even though the compulsion 

204 



was upon them to abstain from any sectarian instruction or influ- 
ence. Now, if that can be done in the State Superintendent's office, 
what are we to expect with the promiscuous teachers who are to 
give this instruction? The Protestant does not know the views of 
the CathoHc and vice versa, and therefore there is grave danger of 
sectarian instruction creeping in unconsciously and without purpose, 

Thej Chairman : 

Mr. Collier, of Eton College, Oxford, England. 

Mr. CoIvUDr: 

There have been one or two remarks made which I can hardly 
let pass. The first is in regard to school government. This is very 
important. We expect very much of the school government to be 
carried by the boys themselves. I was inhabitant once of a house 
of thirty-six boys when the master had to go away. I had very 
little difficulty. I am in favor of school government by the boys 
themselves. Of course this should not be of small boys. There 
is a natural distinction. 

On the subject of athletics I think we have solved the problem 
satisfactorily in England. It seems to me that a school boy can 
hardly be expected to take part in the realities of life. We had a 
debating society in which discussions were sometimes carried on 
vigorously. In one of our debating societies a boy said, during a 
strike of a local labor union, that he thought the leaders of the 
strike ought to be shot. The striking union happened to hear of 
this and they said that if such things were expressed in the school 
they would take their children out of the school. Good healthy 
athletics are a valuable thing in a school. 

The; Chairman : 

Professor Hatfield, of Northwestern University. 

Professor HatfieIvD: 

I enjoyed the first of the three papers very much indeed, and 
stand, in the main, for its conclusions ; the assumption that the ideal 
of the American boy is surely something to be reckoned with, and 
that we need more live men teachers, is certainly true. It is, to be 
sure, a fact that in our region the ideal of the average man has 
little place for "archgeology," but when we walk along Prairie Avenue 
and see the millions of money squandered there in making life 
hideous, we are inclined to ask if there is anything more worthy 
of the attention of live men than faithfully taught "archaeology," if 
this word be rightfully defined. It is also true in America, and 

205 



very greatly to its detriment, that aesthetic interests are for the 
most part in charge of the women's clubs. We need just here 
the peculiar temperament of man that is especially fitted for meet- 
ing civil problems. I pay all honor to women's clubs, but it has 
been a great loss to the virility of art in the daily life of this country 
that these matters have been so exclusively cultivated by women. 
Is not "archaeology" after all the thing that normal men in fully 
civilized countries are most interested about? 

As to the relative proportion of the. sexes, I think the solution 
is found in the first chapter of Genesis, where it says, "Male and 
female created He them." That word "and" here is one of the most 
helpful in the Bible. My ideal of society is not a women's society, 
neither is it an athletic society of "Goliaths" and pugilists. Let us 
have in our colleges fifty per cent, of men and fifty per cent, of 
women, and our problem is solved. 

The Chairman : 

Principal Boltwood, of the Evanston Township High School. 
PrincipaIv Boltwood: 

The apportionment of the men and women teachers is an impor- 
tant thing. If the public schools build character that character must 
recognize both sides. It is a good thing for a boy to come under 
the influence of a refined woman, and it is an equally good thing for 
a girl to come under the influence of a refined, earnest man. What 
ideals of manhood enter into the conception of a great many girls 
in our grammar schools ? They come from working families. Their 
ideals of manhood are gained from their "fellers," as they call 
them, that they meet on the street. In the high school, too often 
they do not come into contact with a single specimen of manly 
man. It is a great loss on their part. In this character building 
both sexes must have their rights. This will illustrate my point: 
A farmer in Illinois had a daughter about sixteen years old. She 
fell in love with a hired man, and they asked the father if they 
might get married. He told them they must wait. He said to his 
wife, "We are to blame for this. This girl has grown up on the 
prairie. All the people she has seen are not what we want her to 
have. We must show her a different specimen of manhood. I have 
a nephew and I want to invite him here and have him bring one of 
his college friends along." They carried out the plan. At the end 
of that vacation the girl had changed her ideas so far that she had 
nothing more to say about the engagement. She had a higher 
ideal of manhood. It was a good thing. In school we must recog- 

206 



nize in character building a balanced system, with the two forces, 
so that the girls as well as the boys shall have what the other sex 
can impart. 

The Chairman : 

Principal Albright, of Columbus, Ohio, 

PrincipaIv Albright: 

The question which has just been under discussion has been very 
close to us in Columbus. We have lost some of our best men 
teachers. We have felt that loss seriously. The professions have 
called some of them out; others have gone into manufacturing or 
other lines of business. It seems from this that it is true that the 
financial returns for work in the school room were not sufficient. 
Whatever the reasons are we are losing many of our best men. A 
bit of personal history here may be interesting. I asked the teachers' 
committee of our Board of Education for a supply a short time 
since. I had lost one of my best men who had left me to assume 
the position of a principal in another State. The committee had a 
reserve list. That reserve list now has its list of men exhausted. I 
wanted a teacher to put into a room seating about sixty boys. They 
said "The only teacher we can give you is a woman." "But I must 
have a man," I said. Give me a woman they did. The woman now 
has charge of the sixty boys, first and second year, who have not 
yet had their school characters established. They are in the forma- 
tive state and it requires a great amount of executive ability, and, 
in her case, an uneconomical expenditure of nervous energy to 
take care of them. And so I have a misplaced teacher. The boys 
in that room have had their mothers' care until they were of school 
age. During the next period they were under the care of women. 
Now they come into the high school and are still under women. I 
want to ask the question whether when these boys get through with 
their high school course and go out into the world their relations 
will still be almost exclusively with women, or will they meet with 
men ? In the business arena they will meet men of masculine energy. 
I have asked for men to be put in charge of my boys' rooms because 
I think that the boys have had enough of school women's culture. 
I have less than thirty-three per cent, of my teachers men. I have 
not enough men to impress their character and their force and their 
virility upon the school to the extent I should like. This is one 
of the subjects that brought me to this meeting and I should like 
to hear more about it. 



207 



The Chairman: 

I do not dare take the responsibility of interfering with the 
culinary part. I am a married man and know what that means. 
It is nearly time to close. 

President Merrill, of Fisk University. 

President Merrill: 

If there is anybody in the world who understands human nature 
it is a negro. I supposed when I went down South that I was to 
study them. They are studying me. I have found that there is a 
difference in men and women. There are men and men and there 
are women and women. I want to tell you of a woman who has 
been in our school for thirty-four years as teacher of Latin. She 
has never lost a recitation. There is not a man who is her equal in 
influence over the boys. She holds the boys. She has her room in 
the boys' dormitory and they go into her room for advice, and it 
is not woman's advice but man's advice, and still she is not a 
masculine woman. She is perfectly ladylike. I think it makes 
some difference as to what kind of women and what kind of men 
we have in our schools. We have a man that our pupils call 
"Sissy." His influence is not great. 

The Chairman : 

Dean Holgate, of Northwestern University. 

Dean Holgate: 

I have but a word to say at the close of this Conference and 
that is to thank you for your presence here. We are highly gratified 
that you thought sufficiently well of us and of the program, and 
that you appreciated so fully the occasion of the celebration of the 
completion of thirty years of educational work by Dr. Fisk, that 
you were inclined to spend these two days here. The program was 
planned and arranged with the thought distinctly in mind that the 
problems of secondary education are not only the most important, 
but are as well the most difficult of those arising in any of the 
fields of education. It is distinctly recognized in all college circles 
that the work of the secondary school is more difficult than the work 
of higher education, and perhaps also more difficult than the work 
of primary education. It was with that thought in mind that this 
Conference was planned. 

We are greatly gratified that it has been possible to carry out 
the program as planned. The speakers have been kind enough to 
follow the program as outlined and we wish to offer to them our 

208 



thanks for their kindness. We appreciate your presence here on 
this campus, and if there is anything that we have not done to make 
you feel perfectly at home we wish now that we might do it. I 
hope you may be able to stay for the afternoon exercises which 
will be of an interesting character. I thank you. 
Mr. LesIvIe;, of Ottawa, Illinois : 

Mr. Chairman: I wish to move you that a vote of thanks be 
extended to the faculty and the students here and to the citizens 
who have so generously entertained us and made our stay among 
them so pleasant. 

Motion seconded. 

Motion carried. 

Adjourned. 

ADDRESS BY PRINCIPAI, HERBERT F. FISK. 

This paper was read at the Alumni Reunion of the Fisk Celebration after the adjourn- 
ment of the Conference on Secondary Education, but may be considered as the closing 
speech of the Conference. 

My honored and beloved friends : My acknowledgments are due, 
first of all, for the grateful privilege accorded to me of participating 
with you in the extended and interesting program of this educa- 
tional convention. 

We are all indebted, and I am sure you will join with me in ex- 
pressing our hearty appreciation of that indebtedness, to the Presi- 
dent of the University, who was first to suggest the holding of this 
educational conference, and to whose rare powers of persuasion and 
of organization is to be attributed its notable success. 

I desire also gratefully to acknowledge the generous assistance 
kindly given by several of my colleagues and by many pupils in 
working out the plans devised by President James, in some instances 
relinquishing weeks of their summer vacation that they might pro- 
mote the success of this occasion and in other ways might serve the 
interests of the Academy and supply the lack of service occasioned 
by my absence. 

And I wish also to express my satisfaction at the presence of so 
large a number who, in the course of these many years, have en- 
deared yourselves to me as my pupils. 

Your acceptance of the invitation sent out under the auspices 
of the University is giving me a very great pleasure. With some 
of you, as with myself, the years have been so many since we last 
met that faces and figures have considerably changed, and meeting 

209 



anywhere else but here we should scarce be able to recognize one 
another, but where facial features, after the lapse of years, are 
scarcely recognizable, something in the tone of voice or in attitude 
or in gesture will often be pleasingly familiar. 

I desire to acknowledge with special gratitude the kindness of 
those among our visitors who consented to be announced as speakers 
in this three-days' celebration, whose names have honored and 
adorned the most illustrious educational programs. Your interest 
to meet them and hear them has led many of you to make a long 
journey, while but for that attraction I should miss today the pleas- 
ure of seeing you. 

To those who have addressed to me personally words of gracious 
compliment my heart goes out in thankful appreciation, both of the 
things that they have said, and of the kindness with which they have 
considerately refrained from saying some other things, not so com- 
plimentary, which they might have uttered, to say the least, with no 
greater stretch of imagination, and with as plausible a warrant in 
the facts to which they have referred. 

I am not the less grateful for these many tokens of personal 
appreciation and personal regard and for the distinguished privilege 
and honor of having my long period of service thus signalized, as 
I turn my attention and direct your attention to the fact that the 
chief distinction of this occasion lies not in the recognition of the 
somewhat unusual felicity of a teacher who has enjoyed thirty years 
of work in one field, but in this : that it is one of the many tokens that 

During the last ten years of educational progress the work of 
secondary education and the rank of workers in this field are coming 
to be recognized with increasing respect. It is no longer the case that 
college authorities assume that all wisdom lies with them and dictate 
to the secondary schools their programs of study with the same 
freedom with which they prescribe their own programs. In the 
New England States, and in the Middle States, and in the North 
Central States, and in the Southern States, are four associations 
of educators holding meetings annually in which the representa- 
tives of secondary education are solicited to come into conference 
with representatives from the colleges on all questions of educa- 
tional theory and policy in which they have common interests; and 
some college officials will be found ready to admit that the modi- 
fications of policy resulting from such conferences have not always 
been first proposed by college men. 

Within the last ten years the gifts and bequests for the equip- 

210 



ment and endowment of secondary schools have been greatly in- 
creased over any former like period. A single one of the academies 
of Massachusetts, now over a century old, has received within the 
decade more than $300,000. The secondary schools under the super- 
vision of the University of the State of New York received in the 
last two years $800,000. A new institution of secondary grade has 
within this decade been established in Maryland with an endow- 
ment of $2,000,000. The far-seeing friends of education in increas- 
ing numbers are becoming convinced that liberal benefactions to 
secondary schools are so productive of good results as to make it 
suitable that these schools, as well as the colleges and universities, 
should be the objects of their generous regard. 

The coming together of this large assembly of former students 
of this secondary school, and of its friends, and of a goodly number 
of college men and secondary school principals and officers on the 
invitation of the President and Trustees of Northwestern University 
affords another conspicuous token of an increasingly high apprecia- 
tion of the importance of the work of the secondary schools. 

I cannot content myself without adding one or two words more, 
expressive of personal feeling. The evidences that some measure of 
success has attended my work are gratifying to me. If the enthusiasm 
of numbers and a spirit of emulation in the weaving of complimentary 
expressions may possibly have led to some exaggerations, I shall not 
be in haste to make denial or to suggest the propriety of more moder- 
ate statements. We will assume that all that has been said concern- 
ing the success of the work of the Academy and concerning the value 
of the training received by its pupils, has been said in sober earnest 
and that those who have spoken words of appreciation believe them 
to be true, and that they are true in fact, but we all know, and it 
seems to me that it should be said, that no one person is entitled to 
the larger share of the credit for this success. It has been my great 
happiness to have had many partners in this work without whose in- 
telligent and unselfish co-operation my labor would have been vain, 
and I wish to name, among them, those who toiled in this field before 
I came to it. Faithful labor had been expended, and I have gathered 
harvests from other men's sowing. The impression upon the minds 
of some that there was little success in the work of the school in its 
first fifteen years, and that I found a mere handful of students and 
a weak faculty, is not correct. I found the school large and suc- 
cessful. To me was intrusted a valuable working capital and from 
the first by the generous policy of the trustees I was greatly favored 

211 



with the services of associates in the faculty whose labors in the 
class room and whose services in counsel and whose unstinted efforts 
for the welfare of their pupils were invaluable. I gratefully rec- 
ognize also as indispensable partners in this work my esteemed 
friends and neighbors, the presidents and the professors of the Uni- 
versity, co-operating with me officially in the oversight of the school, 
the officers of the Garrett Biblical Institute, and the pastors of the 
city churches, often kindly responding to my requests and giving 
the students by their addresses instruction and stimulus of highest 
value. And the citizens of Evanston have been important factors 
in this partnership of service. In many homes have students found 
not only shelter and comfort, but sympathy and encouragement. 

And further, the outcome of my own delightful labors and of 
the conspiring efforts of all my partners in this work would have 
been m.uch less gratifying if they had been expended upon a different 
class of students. The perfection of a statue depends not alone on 
the skill of the sculptor, but upon the quality of the marble." The best 
schools cannot receive soft and ease-loving boys, petted and pampered 
children of luxurious homes, unwilling to give themselves to hard 
labor, and mould them into presidents of colleges, members of con- 
gress, eminent pastors and preachers, wise physicians, skillful sur- 
geons, and men with great capacity for business. Our Academy has 
had the good fortune to expend its work on better material. Many 
of its alumni of whom it is most proud, achieving successes in every 
field of effort, were in their school days dependent upon their 
own exertions, and others not so seriously burdened recognized in 
their school days their own responsibility; knew that the school 
could do for them, only as they toiled for themselves. Every suc- 
cessful student enters into partnership with his teachers, and a 
very large part of the resulting success is to be attributed to his 
own labor and to the influences that surrounded him during the years 
that preceded the beginning of his school work. 

And now last of all, and chief of all those whom I gratefully 
recognize as associates in this educational partnership, is one man 
whom we all delight to honor, one of the princely benefactors of the 
University, among whose numerous and munificent gifts is the noble 
building which the Academy has gratefully and proudly occupied 
for nearly five years. 

I have debated much whether I should content myself with what 
I have now said or should attempt the expression of some convictions 
in regard to matters of policy in the conduct of secondary schools, 

212 



about which different opinions are held among us. If I say nothing 
it may perhaps be thought that I have no convictions or that I am 
without the courage to avow them. If I enter upon a discussion 
there is danger that I tax your patience without offering anything 
that will recompense you for the labor of listening at this late 
hour, and there is further danger that I may, with some of you, 
forfeit the credit that you would be glad to give me for good sense 
by uttering sentiments not in harmony with your cherished opinions. 
On the other hand, it may not be unreasonable for me to hope that 
by the utterance of my opinions I may confirm the wavering judg- 
ments of some who are inclined hesitatingly to agree with me, and 
I may even hope to persuade some to come over to my opinions v/ho 
have held what I have thought to be false and harmful educational 
theories. If this hope betrays a presumptuous egotism my excuse 
shall be the same as that of the editor of the New York Advocate in 
an editorial, three weeks ago, on Jonathan Edwards, justifying his 
attempt to formulate his own creed on the Freedom of the Will by 
saying that he preferred to suffer the reproach of being presumptuous 
rather than the reproach of cowardice. It is quite possible that this 
is one of the occasions in which speech is silvern and silence would be 
golden, but I have decided, rather to take the risk of being thought 
presumptuous than through timidity to withhold at this time a 
candid effort to bring into accord with myself those who hold 
opinions different from mine on the mooted questions, and those 
whose opinions are yet unformed because the questions have not 
been duly considered. 



WHERE TO PLACE THE EMPHASIS IN EDUCATION. 

False theories are often held not through contravention of the 
truth, but by reason of false emphasis. The differences that obtain 
among us in the theory and practice of education, of religion, and 
of politics, are for the most part differences in the placing of 
emphasis. In politics and statesmanship nearly all debates have to 
do with the comparison of competing claims, as for example the 
delimitation of state rights and national rights, of the rights of the 
individual and the claims of society upon the individual. 

The rights of personal liberty are sacred. That they should 
be set aside by the acts of an arbitrary ruler, is despotism ; by 
the acts of organized society, is tyranny; by other individuals, is 

213 



crime. But these sacred rights have their Hmitations. May the 
individual sell poisons at his caprice, or as prompted by his cupidity ? 
May he build his house or factory of such materials or to such a 
height as he pleases ? May he go abroad with such clothing or such 
absence of clothing as may suit his fancy? 

Men are nearly unanimous in holding, at the same time, to the 
rights of the individual and the rights of the community in re- 
straint of the individual. But men will differ and will debate over 
the boundaries between liberty and license, and differences in local 
conditions will call for the placing of dividing lines and the placing 
of emphasis differently. 

In religion, the questions are not over the use or the non- 
use of forms of worship, but whether there should be more or less 
of ritual, whether the forms should be spontaneous, or prescribed by 
authority. Shall the emphasis be laid on faith or on conduct, on 
the work of God's spirit in the heart of man or on the effort of 
man's heart to feel after God? 

In education, the mooted questions in like manner relate to the 
placing of emphasis. 

Shall the emphasis be placed on the training of the senses and 
the habituation of the bodily organs to the endurance of toil and 
hardship, or on the development of skill in the use of tools, or on the 
acquisition of such knowledge as can at once be applied to practical 
utilities, or on the cultivation of the powers of the mind, on the form- 
ing of habits of voluntary attention and reflection, on the exercising 
of the mind in analysis, comparison, generalization, so as to give 
a training in the habit of forming just judgments when the condi- 
tions for such judgments are met with for the first time, or shall the 
emphasis be placed on the formation of character, the determination 
of the will in accord with the dictates of the judgment and of an in- 
structed conscience? 

And in the choice of means to reach some of these ends, shall 
emphasis be laid on the superior value of mathematics, or of lan- 
guage, or of history, or of physical science, or of manual training, 
or of physical culture? 

The teacher in secondary schools, more than any other teacher, 
has the opportunity of influencing the pupils under his instruction. 
He stands at the parting of the roads. Choices of every kind are 
made by young men and young women when at the high school 
age, choices that lead on to further study or that close finally the 
gates to advanced training, choices that fix the subsequent environ- 

214 



ment and in large degree determine the measure of the service that 
will be rendered to society, and other choices of supreme importance 
that go far towards determining for the whole of one's life the dis- 
position of the soul towards faith and virtue. 

In all these choices the influence of a sympathetic and resource- 
ful teacher is often a most significant factor. 

Whether the course of study to be pursued by a young man 
shall be shorter or longer, shall be narrowly specialized or broadly 
liberal, will often depend upon the advice given by the secondary 
school instructor. 

Charles H, Fowler, a freshman, was proposing to himself the 
career of a lawyer, and he persuaded himself that for a lawyer Greek 
and Latin were unpractical studies and proposed to take a short 
elective course. A quarter hour of conversation with President 
Cummings led to a change of his plans, a change the making of 
which he never afterwards regretted. 

Dr. Cummings once in conversation with me referred to some 
experiences of his when he was a pupil preparing for college in the 
Maine Wesleyan Seminary. The reading of a small book, Todd's 
"Students' Manual," then only recently published, placed in his 
hands by one of his teachers, he regarded as having greatly in- 
fluenced his methods as a student and as contributing to the 
efliciency of his work in after life. 

There are many here today who confess themselves greatly in- 
debted for instruction and for inspiration to Dr. Cummings and to 
Bishop Fowler. It is quite certain that they would never have 
reached the high positions held by them, and that their influence 
would never have entered our lives, were it not for influences that 
moulded them proceeding from their teachers, when they were of 
high-school age. 

One of the most successful of the presidents of American Metho- 
dist colleges is an alumnus of Northwestern University and of the 
Garrett Biblical Institute, who came to Evanston thinking that he 
could not afford the time at his age to complete a preparation for 
college and to take a college course, and accordingly entered the 
Garrett Biblical Institute and spent a year in study, expecting to 
complete the course and enter the Methodist pastorate. At the end 
of a year he was persuaded, by good counsel from some source, to 
enter the Academy. 

Another Methodist college president was a highly successful 
teacher for some years, and then an eflicient and popular pastor in 

215 



Chicago, before he decided, under good advice, to enter the Academy. 
There are many persons who hold plausible theories in accordance 
with which they would have thought, and would have advised these 
young men, that it was too late in life for them to reconsider their 
plans and to take so extended a course of study. 

In what direction an educator's influence shall be exerted de- 
pends upon his range of view and upon where the emphasis has 
been placed in his own education, and upon his theory of what is 
most important in the work and life of his pupils. It is important, 
beyond estimate, that the secondary school teacher should have well- 
considered opinions on questions affecting the welfare of young peo- 
ple and some native discretion or acquired wisdom that will serve 
to make him the competent and the influential adviser of those who 
look to him for counsel. 

His own training should not have been too narrowly specialized, 
and when he has done his best to become and to remain catholic- 
spirited, sympathetic with the legitimate claims of every science, 
and of every art, and of every form of training and of culture, he 
will do well to exercise himself to a somewhat suspicious self- 
criticism and now and then deliberately to reconsider his opinions, 
for we have not far to go to find instances of the narrowing effects 
of narrow specialization. 

A distinguished professor of geology became so enwrapt in his 
specialty as to persuade himself that nothing else was quite so 
important, as containing matter of useful information and material 
for the mental discipline of children, as geology. He prepared a 
text-book in geology for grammar schools, and was greatly disap- 
pointed and afflicted that he could not persuade the Board of Educa- 
tion of his State to make geology a required subject and his text- 
book the required text-book for all the graded schools of the State, 
and through the closing years of his life he felt that his college 
associates were to a degree unfriendly since they were so unappre- 
ciative of the superior value of geology for the mental pabulum of 
children of twelve years of age. This is an unusual instance of ex- 
treme bias in the case of a distinguished scholar and author and 
teacher in favor of his own specialty. 

The instances of undue bias are sufficiently common to give 
occasion to every one who sincerely wishes to be equitable in his 
judgments to recognize the need on his part of guarding ceaselessly 
from over-emphasizing those subjects and methods which are to him 
of special interest. 

216 



As in arranging a curriculum for a school the urgent claims 
of special studies ought to yield to the demand for breadth and 
catholicity, so in arranging the scheme of secondary instruction for 
the individual, emphasis should be laid on the importance of a train- 
ing that shall not be early specialized, and that shall never be nar- 
rowly specialized. 

It has been claimed by some — perhaps more insistently ten years 
ago than now — that specialization should begin with the child in 
the cradle, that child-study should enable experts early to ascertain 
whether the child is botany-minded or Greek-minded, and that 
life is so short that at the earliest opportunity for discerning the 
natural tastes and powers of the child, the choice should be made 
for him of his special career and that his training should be especially 
adapted thereto. 

There are two answers — either of these should be conclusive — to 
this claim for early specialization: 

First, the school may be thought of under the term used by the 
Germans for their secondary schools ; it is a gymnasium^ and it were 
as suitable in a training school for the mind to seek a special de- 
velopment of the child where he is strongest in neglect of his 
development in other directions as in athletic training to develop 
strong muscles and to neglect weak eyes. As it is requisite for 
physical health that there shall be proportionate strength of the 
different members of the body, so it is requisite for sanity of judg- 
ment that there shall be symmetrical and harmonious development 
of the powers of the mind. 

And, secondly, the school may be thought of under the term 
which we adopt from the Romans, as a seminary, a seminarium, a 
place of seed sowing, a nursery of young plants. What fertilities 
may be found in a certain soil, what aptitudes may be discovered in 
a soul — ^these are to be determined and can only be determined by 
numerous tests, by the actual planting of seeds and giving them 
their chance for growth. 

In June last I made an afternoon call upon a friend in an agri- 
cultural township in western New York. He called my attention 
to a narrow valley within sight from his hillside farm where an 
extraordinary advance in the value of land for farming purposes 
had taken place. Fifteen years ago its special adaptation to the 
production of celery was first discovered, and land that up to that 
time had a market value of $40.00 per acre has now an annual rental 
value of $40.00 per acre. This result has been reached by what may 

217 



be called the education of the land. It was wild and marshy; it 
was reclaimed by drainage; its fertility was tested by various seed- 
sowings, and unsuspected adaptations were discovered. 

What teacher has not been delighted and surprised with analo- 
gous developments following upon his work as an educational hus- 
bandman ? There is a science of agriculture ; there is a science of 
medicine; there is a science of education. These are all empirical 
sciences. What the harvest shall be from virgin soil, the husband- 
man cannot infallibly foresee. The physician and the educator find 
some new elements, physical and psychological, in every new patient, 
in every new pupil, in whom they seek to sow the seeds of physical 
and mental health, and they cannot certainly foreknow which shall 
prosper, whether this or that, and for this reason, among others, 
truths of many kinds should be implanted in the soul of every pupil, 
and various should be the ministrations of sympathetic moisture and 
warmth, quickening the dormant energies residing in the germs and 
removing every hindrance to their healthy growth. 

Professor Miinsterberg, in his Atlantic Monthly article of May, 
1900, subsequently republished in his book on "American Traits," 
tells interestingly how he failed in his boyhood to discover any in- 
terest in what was for him the richest fruitage of his intellectual 
life. For three years in his boyhood, botany was all his desire, 
then for another three years his passion was for mechanics; he had 
his machine shop, and was stringing his electric wires. And then 
for a year theological problems and oriental languages had for him 
an absorbing interest. Then, with no return of any passionate in- 
terest for botany or mechanics, he became deeply interested in 
ethnological questions, and gave much time to excavations, finding 
old pottery, and studying prehistoric civilizations, and not until 
he was past twenty years of age, and was in the midst of his uni- 
versity course, did he discover his lifelong passion for psychology. 
Then and ever after he was grateful that he was never allowed by 
his parents or his teachers to intermit his diligence in prosecuting 
the curriculum of the German gymnasium. He is sure now that 
when he was playing with his herbarium it was but a "petty caprice," 
a "boyish inclination." He then pleaded to be permitted to drop 
the Latin as being of no use, and those educationists who argue that 
in school work no place should be given to that which finds in the 
pupil inward resistance would surely have said, this is a botany- 
minded boy, or, at a later period, this boy is born to be an inventor. 



218 



feeling sure that it was wise to develop the boy where he seemed to 
be strongest, and not knowing the truth, that there was then in 
the boy unsuspected strength for other work, unsuspected because 
undeveloped. Professor Miinsterberg speaks of the mistaken view 
of some who would have said, if they could have possibly anticipated 
that this boy was to become a lecturer in English, on psychology, to 
American students, that he should give his time to English rather 
than to Greek, "not knowing that the little English he would need, to 
write essays for the Atlantic Monthly and to lecture to American 
students, he could pick up any time"; and his judgment for himself 
is that it was only as he studied Greek that he was called to use 
English, and if he had learned English instead of Greek he would 
never have had a chance to use his English. 

President Thwing, of Western Reserve University, in his article 
in the October number of the North American Review, declares 
that in most cases pupils cannot know what their abilities are or 
what will be their desires or opportunities, much less can their teach- 
ers with certainty interpret their gifts or predict their future, and 
this "ignorance should lead to a broad course of study." 

We conclude, therefore, that emphasis should be laid by the pupil 
and by the teacher throughout the secondary school course, and in 
the earlier period of the student's work following the secondary 
course of study, with reference to which they are both planning, 
upon breadth and not upon specialization. 

We are ready to inquire now whether we can find any sure 
grounds for concluding as to the relative emphasis to be placed upon 
different lines of training and instruction within a broad range of 
studies. Shall we not all consent that emphasis should be placed 
upon the importance of physical education to a degree far beyond 
what it commonly receives ? Is it enough that a few men by specially 
strenuous devotion to athletics shall make their college famous for 
its success on athletic fields, while, at the same time, the majority 
of their fellow students are neglectful of the conditions essential to 
physical soundness and vigor? 

It is a good thing that those who play should submit themselves 
to self-denials in giving up all that is harmful to them and even 
in giving up, as one prominent foot-ball man says, everything that 
is useless even if it be not particularly harmful, in the interest of ath- 
letic success. Some foot-ball men are quoted as saying that there is 
only one time to play foot-ball, and that there is time enough after 
the foot-ball season is over for all those indulgences which are fatal 

219 



to success in athletic contests. ''Now one must think of nothing 
else but 'end runs' and 'line bucks.' " 

The foot-ball player should consider that whatever is reckoned 
worth while in judicious physical training and in the postponing 
of debilitating pleasures, for the sake of foot-ball success, is equally 
worth while and equally necessary for success in the rivalries of 
the intellectual curriculum. A Chicago foot-ball enthusiast says, 
with wise discretion, that a cigar or the loss of a single night's sleep 
may mean the loss of the championship. But surely the physical 
athlete in college should count himself also as an intellectual athlete, 
and should relinquish pleasing indulgences for the sake of scholastic 
success with equal cheerfulness as for the sake of coveted athletic 
victory. Otherwise, instead of athletics becoming promotive of 
bodily and intellectual health and vigor, the reaction from self-denial 
to self-indulgence may result in enfeeblement of both mind and 
body. Athletics may and ought to be so conducted as to be of very 
great value. There is need to emphasize the sana mens in corpore 
sano. As one writer has said, athletics serve to "wash the brain and 
to clean the soul." 

A writer in the Atlantic Monthly for October, discussing the re- 
lation between rank in college scholarship and success in after life, 
reviews statistics that had been given by Professor Dexter in the 
Popular Science Monthly of last March, gathered from twenty-two 
colleges, and proceeds with a minute inquiry concerning the graduates 
from Harvard College during the twenty-seven years from 1861 to 
1887, with a result that he finds that while it must be admitted that, 
in America, the fact of a man's being known to have a high rank 
in college is no help to him in a profession or in business, yet the 
best scholars in any class, as a matter of fact, do furnish several 
times as many men of distinguished success as any equal number 
of those having lower grades, and he expresses his surprise and re- 
gret to find that members of ball teams attained in after life to 
less distinguished success than the average of their class-mates, what- 
ever the criterion be by which success is measured. His conclusion 
is that athletics have become too much an end of themselves, that 
the pursuit becomes so absorbing, and the amount of practice re- 
quired is so great, as to entail the sacrifice of other things. 

President King, of Oberlin College, in an article in the Bihlio- 
theca Sacra for July, on "The Primacy of the Person in Education," 
urges impressively the rightful claims of physical education be- 
cause of the physical basis of habit, and the importance of surplus 

220 



energy, and the influence of physical training on the brain centers, 
and the connection of the will with muscular activity. He argues 
convincingly that the school and college should provide for the super- 
vision of the health of students by trained physicians, and that 
such graded courses in physical training should be prescribed for 
all students as will deserve to count as real education, aiming not 
only to promote the health and the systematic development of the 
body, but also the strengthening of the intellect and of the will. 
This, he says, calls for the encouragement of a wide range of sports 
that shall enlist the great body of the students, and not merely a 
small number of athletes, and demands that all college sports should 
be pervaded by the spirit of genuine play. If these sports are re- 
garded as having their most valuable offices as money-making enter- 
prises and schemes of advertising, they come to overtop greater 
values and thus become a serious evil. 

The ideal condition has been in a few schools and colleges made 
real. In one of the smaller New England colleges, for more than 
forty years, under the headship of one man, himself a graduate 
of the college and an educated physician and now dean of the 
faculty, the department of hygiene and physical education has been 
fully organized. Every student has been minutely examined in 
reference to his strength and physical education and advised as 
to particular courses for the maintenance and increase of health 
and strength, and regular attendance in the gymnasium for exer- 
cise four times a week has been a requirement for all students, 
and uniformly it has been found that the average health of the 
senior class has been better than that of the junior, and of the junior 
better than that of the sophomore, and of the sophomore better than 
that of the freshman. There will be some of you who will have 
added interest in these particulars when I identify that college as 
the one whose foot-ball team, representing a constituency of only 
about four hundred students, a few weeks ago gained a notable 
victory over that of Harvard University. 

There is cause for heartiest congratulations that the hopes long 
cherished among us are very soon to be realized, and that similar 
adequate gymnasium facilities will be provided for all the students 
of our Evanston departments. 

Due emphasis should also be laid upon the educational value of 
manual training. It is worth much, in the bringing of the bodily 
powers into subjection to the mind and will, in the training of the 
will to patience and persistence, of the eye to clearness of vision, 

221 



and of the hand to precision, that the pupil shall learn with some 
measure of skill to handle the saw, and the plane, and the hammer, 
and the chisel, and the ax, even though one were never to make use 
of his skill in the earning of a day's wage. The acquirement of 
facility in the use of the typewriter has its considerable value. But 
it should be recognized by teachers that as soon as the use of any 
implement or of any machine becomes so familiar as to be nearly 
automatic, further exercise of the same kind is nearly or quite value- 
less as a means of education. 

A greater degree of emphasis, then, is claimed for the training 
of the gymnasium, and of the athletic field, and for the manual train- 
ing of the shop, than is usually accorded to them; but caution is 
urged, especially in the case of those whose tastes strongly lead 
them in those directions, against the employment of time that can- 
not wisely be spared from the requirements of other forms of disci- 
pline. There is many a pupil, however, who will find a measure of 
recreation in the use of tools, and after an hour in the shop will 
come back with cheerfulness to what is for him less attractive and 
more laborious, his studies in science, mathematics, language, or his- 
tory. 

In regard to the very high importance of intellectual training, a 
degree of importance so great as to make it reasonable that the 
larger part of the time and energy of pupil and teacher should be 
devoted to it, there is well nigh universal agreement. Not so well 
agreed are the theorists or the practical educators in regard to the 
proportionate emphasis that should be placed upon the value of dif- 
ferent lines of study in securing this training. Some would put 
mathematics at the front, and others language, and others the sci- 
ences of observation and experiment, and others literature and his- 
tory, and for some years, under the leadership of prominent edu- 
cators, the claim has come to be very commonly made that there is 
no preeminence to be recognized among various studies, that all de- 
pends upon how the subject is taught, that all subjects are equally 
serviceable for training the mind to practical efficiency when the dif- 
ferent subjects are taught with equal professional skill. Especially 
has it come to be fashionable contemptuously to scout the ancient 
claims for language study as a means of discipline. 

The late Mr. Ham, of Chicago, wrote and spoke with much en- 
thusiasm on the value of manual training. He came to persuade him- 
self that there was little or no value in any other form of training. 
While urging before the State Teachers' Association of Illinois the 

222 



incomparable value of this form of education, I once heard him say : 
"A thought is the shadow of an act, and a word is the shadow of a 
thought, and in setting our young people to the study of language we 
have set them to the study of shadows of shadows." "What greater 
folly," he said, "can be conceived? When you teach a boy to drive 
a nail straight, to use the plane and the saw skillfully, you are 
giving him something of real value." Mr. Emerson many years be- 
fore said almost the same thing : "We are students of words. We 
are shut up in schools and colleges for a dozen years and come out 
with the memory of words, and do not know a thing. We cannot use 
our hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our ears. We cannot tell our 
course by the stars, nor the time of day by the sun." 

Now it does not count for so much that these erratic thinkers 
should have put forth these utterances, but when a popular speaker, 
as occurred in July, gives his endorsement to these utterances before 
a large audience that appears responsive to the speaker's words, de- 
claring this as Emerson's message in education and saying that "this 
talk is now common and is growing in volume, but it was courageous 
and pioneering when Emerson spoke," it will be thought in some of 
the homes from which our secondary pupils come that the teacher 
who advises in these enlightened times the study of so-called dead 
languages shows himself thereby to be unworthy of confidence as 
an instructor and counsellor of young people. 

And the secondary school teacher may find himself embarrassed 
to justify to himself the retention of courses calling for Latin 
and Greek when he learns that some educators are saying in public 
discussions that "the time has come for Latin and Greek to go 'way 
back and lie down." This is a quotation from a formal address be- 
fore a body of teachers by one of the most influential college presi- 
dents in America. 

Mr. Harris, the Commissioner of Education, when called upon 
to make an extemporaneous response to that address, referred to 
the humor of the expression and the manifest intention of exag- 
geration, and called attention to some single words used with singu- 
lar felicity by the speaker which could only have been suggested to 
his mind by reason of his own classical training. 

It is admitted by all that one's native language should be studied 
for two purposes — for the ability to interpret correctly the language 
of others, whether spoken or printed ; and for the ability to give 
expression to one's own thought. Now the English vocabulary 
of our conversation and our newspapers is much more largely made 

223 



up of words derived, in their form and in their signification, from 
Latin words than is commonly acknowledged. I have given some 
leisure hours to the inspection of editorial articles in newspapers of 
the highest literary standards with a view to ascertaining what pro- 
portion of the vocabulary used by our best editorial writers is, in 
origin, Saxon, Latin, and Greek respectively. The articles selected for 
this purpose were from The New York Times, The New York Sun, 
The Boston Transcript, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Record- 
Herald and The Chicago Evening Post. The topics were all matters 
of current interest, not calling for the use of a technical vocabulary, 
such as "The Alaskan Boundary Commission," "The Policy of Labor 
Leaders," "Speed on Railroads," "Signal Systems on Street Rail- 
roads," "The Mayor's Crusade," "A Professional View of Dowie." 
In making the count, certain classes of words were excluded, viz., 
biographical and geographical names, pronouns, conjunctions, prep- 
ositions, auxiliary verbs, articles ; retaining all nouns, and verbs, 
and all adjectives and adverbs derived from verbal or substantive 
roots. These exclusions were made for the sufficient reason that 
they serve the purpose simply to hold together the significant words 
of the sentence. It has been common for writers greatly to exag- 
gerate the proportionate value of the Saxon element in our language 
by counting all the particles. 

The result of this inspection was a surprise to myself. I thought 
it probable that the Latin elements in our speech might amount to 
40 per cent. Only in one editorial, that on "The Mayor's Crusade," 
did I find the percentage as low as 37 per cent, of words derived from 
the Latin, In one editorial, on "The Prevalence of Crime," the per- 
centage of Latin-derived words was yy per cent. The average of all 
the articles examined was 55 per cent, of words Latin in their origin, 
and 4}i per cent., varying from i per cent, to 10 per cent., of words 
of Greek origin. 

If one would know with certainty the force of a word, his dic- 
tionary and his book of synonyms will give him very little assistance 
unless he has formed the habit of discriminating the meaning of 
words as developed out of their primitives. 

The geologist will claim that his science can be truly studied only 
as the successive strata are laid bare to view, and a comparison is 
made of what is superficial with that upon which it rests. The 
botanist is not content in his own studies or in his teachings merely 
to observe the leaves and flowers of plants, and classify them by 
their characteristic forms. How the plant lives and grows, how 

224 



it receives its nutriment from soil and air, what is below the sur- 
face as well as what is above the surface of the ground — are to be 
studied if one would know the plant as the botanist knows it. The 
word and the plant are both natural history products, and the 
scholar's use of words with precision and discrimination can be had 
no otherwise than by the tracing of words to their roots. A word 
is something more than the shadow of a thought. Ruskin's familiar 
words are instructive. "To know words and their meaning," he 
says, "one must get into the habit of looking intensely at them, 
assuring himself of their meaning syllable by syllable, nay, letter 
by letter. Without that habit one may have read all the books in 
the British Museum and still be illiterate. On the other hand, one 
may know by memory many languages and talk them all, and not 
truly know a word of any one." To be able to read English is 
something more than to be able to utter it, to pronounce it. One 
does not read Milton unless he interprets to his own mind Milton's 
thought, and he cannot interpret Milton's thought unless he gives 
the same weight and significance to Milton's words as was given 
them in Milton's mind when he wrote them. 

When the distinguished college president told us that "Latin and 
Greek must go 'way back and lie down," his language borrowed 
from the street would suggest that these formerly valued servants 
have become decrepit and may be dismissed as no longer serviceable. 
Using this figure, we will claim for them rather that they are still 
very much alive, our most alert and efficient servitors, the most 
strong of limb, the most deft of hand, the clearest of vision, the 
quickest of hearing, the swiftest of foot. Dismissing the figure, we 
come back to say that the vocabulary of our common English speech 
is more than 50 per cent, of Latin origin and 4 per cent, or 5 per cent, 
of Greek origin, that the vocabulary of science is nine-tenths of 
Greek origin. The directest way to the attainment of a command of 
the technical terms of science is through an elementary study of the 
Greek language rather than through the study of English vocabu- 
laries. The Latin furnishes us with general terms, the Saxon 
furnishes us with specific terms, representing the most common con- 
ditions and activities. Thus the words "condition," "activity," "atti- 
tude," "action," "motion," "emotion," "sensation," "suffering," "af- 
fliction," "elation," "rapture," these and words like them are Latin. 
"Walk" and "run," "leap" and "jump," "hop" and "skip," "lie" 
and "sit" and "stand," "draw" and "pull" and "push," "drive" and 
"ride" and "strive" and "strike," "bring" and "bear," "cry" and 

225 



"weep" and "feel" — are Saxon. The Greek gives us the word "tech- 
nical" and nearly all the specific terms pertaining to the sciences and 
the professions, "arithmetic" and "geometry," "physics" and "chem- 
istry," "geography" and "geology," "physiology" and "zoology," 
"history" and "botany," "mathematics" and "mechanics," "theology" 
and "philosophy," "music" and "poetry," "architecture" and "rhet- 
oric," "symmetry" and "harmony," "rhyme" and "rhythm," "sur- 
geon," "physician," "clergyman," "deacon," "presbyter," and 
"bishop," "politics," "democracy," "monarchy," "anarchy." 

I once asked the late Dr. Marcy, our veteran professor of geol- 
ogy, if he regretted his waste of time in the study of Greek in his 
undergraduate course, and his prompt answer was, "Not at all; I 
know the meaning of scientific words without going to the dictionary 
for them." 

A lawyer's whole business is, on the one hand, the interpreta- 
tion of legal documents, contracts, statutes, wills ; and, on the other 
hand, the use of language in framing contracts and in making pleas, 
using language for purposes of persuasion and instruction. The 
lawyer needs surely to be a life-long student of language, and he 
should have included in his fundamental instruction and training 
an exact study of the resources of the language he uses. The min- 
ister's business is to interpret to his hearers a great book, and be- 
fore he can interpret that book to them he must interpret it to 
himself. It is everybody's business to acquaint himself with the 
thought of others through the knowledge of their words, and to 
make use of words to win his way to other men's minds and hearts, 
and the process of acquiring a command of language is not as simple 
as the process of learning to use negligently and uncertainly these 
symbols of thought. 

Dr. Thomas Arnold once said to his students that he interpreted 
his business as an instructor to be, not the communication of knowl- 
edge, but the putting of them in possession of the means by which 
they could gain knowledge. And this is a very important purpose 
of language instruction, that one shall have learned how to make 
books his teachers, how to find in them what he needs to learn, and 
how to interpret critically the meaning of the author whose guidance 
he seeks. 

I once heard the eminent mathematical teacher and author. Dr. 
Davies, who was at the time professor of mathematics in Columbia 
University, and who had previously for a long period been professor 
of mathematics at West Point, say that students trained by college 

226 



Latin and Greek could in their junior year advance in their studies 
of mathematics so much more rapidly than others who had been 
equally well trained in the fundamentals of mathematics, but without 
the language training, as to make it an economy of time purely for 
the purposes of advanced mathematical study to have had this lan- 
guage training, and he attributed their more rapid progress to the 
fact that they had been accustomed to interpret to themselves readily 
the printed page. 

The chief purpose, however, served by language instruction and 
training, as also by instruction in mathematics and the sciences, is 
the production of brain power. The chief service rendered to the 
State by the high school, the academy, the college, the university, 
is the development of brain power. It is not easy for some people 
to believe this. Some educators lose sight of it. Some are meas- 
uring the good results of their teaching simply by the amount of 
knowledge acquired and remembered. But knowledge serves the 
mind as food serves the body. The mind must have something upon 
which to exercise itself, but when the knov/ledge is assimilated much 
that has served the purpose of mental digestion may be cast ofif and 
forgotten. 

That brain power is an end, the chief end, in the imparting of 
knowledge by the teacher to the pupil, is plausibly disputed by fairly 
intelligent men, and it would seem by some discussions in leading 
periodicals that the school and college are of use only as they teach 
some things that, when once known, can be practically applied. 
Mental strength is thought to be a matter of heredity almost wholly 
with which education has little or nothing to do. This view is 
supported by statements such as are found in a recent editorial in 
the periodical called Success. The writer discusses the failures among 
college graduates. "So many," he says, "at their graduation reach 
their high water mark. They give great promise but they remain 
prospectuses never becoming published volumes. They have earned 
their diplomas, and now they have no other goal. They are most 
helpless and pitiable." 

Mr. Mark Pattison is quoted by President Porter as saying of 
the Oxford students, that "70 per cent, of them are idle, incorrigibly 
idle." President Porter adds that in American universities he thinks 
there is not so scanty a proportion of successful workers; implying, 
however, that he is ready to admit the imputation upon American 
college students that too large a proportion are thus unsuccessful. 
Matthew Arnold says that "in the German universities about one- 

227 



third of the students may be called workers, certainly a larger num- 
ber than in the English universities;" showing that he is quite in 
agreement with Mr. Pattison in his estimate of the comparatively 
small number of those who make good use of their college oppor- 
tunities. 

Bismarck is quoted as saying that "one-third of the graduates 
of the German universities waste their energies in wanton dissipa- 
tion, another third are content to be idle, and the rest rule Ger- 
many." 

Now the larger the number that may be found, whether in Amer- 
ica, or England, or Germany, who make no highly profitable use of 
their college opportunities, and who fail of success in after life, the 
stronger is the evidence for the brain-producing power of the school, 
the college, the university, in those who enjoy these advantages and 
make a diligent use of them. 

Sir Norman Lockyer, the president of the British Association 
for the Advancement of Arts and Sciences, in his presidential ad- 
dress this fall, is for us an authoritative witness. In this notable 
address he quotes approvingly Mr. Rosebery's statement that "the 
coming war that he regards with greatest apprehension, is the war of 
trade that England will have to wage with Germany and with the 
United States of America," and he laments England's lack of equip- 
ment for waging successfully this war, her lack of equipment being 
her lack of universities, which he declares to be the chief producers 
of brain power. England has spent, in the last fifteen years, $600,- 
000,000 on battleships. The battleships are not England's only 
source of sea power, but they are her chief source. Universities 
are not the only producers of brain power, but as sources for the 
production of brain power he claims that they are the equivalents 
of battleships in relation to sea power, and if England would hold 
her own in comparison with other countries she must develop brain 
power through the universities as diligently as she develops sea power 
in making her battleships. He would have England in the next 
fifteen years expend $600,000,000, an equal amount to that invested 
in the last fifteen years in battleships, in the endowment of her ex- 
isting universities and in the establishment of others, and in so 
speaking he takes the universities as they are, zvith all their defects 
mid with all the failures among their students. He asks, What 
makes a country great ? And answers, "its greatest men." And his 
conception is that its greatest men, its men of greatest influence, will 



228 



hereafter be looked for from the universities, as in the past they 
have come from the universities. 

Some figures were compiled by Dr. Fellows, of Iowa, in an article 
read by him at a meeting of the National Educational Association 
a few years ago, showing that 32 per cent, of all congressmen, 46 
per cent, of all senators, fifty per cent, of the vice-presidents, 65 per 
cent, of the presidents, 73 per cent, of the judges of the supreme 
court, and 83 per cent, of the chief justices were college graduates. 
President Bashford, of the Ohio Wesleyan University, takes up these 
figures and seeks to ascertain what are the advantages of college 
graduates over those not college graduates in competing for these 
positions, which are open in America as they are not open in Eng- 
land to all voters without any prejudice whatever against the man 
who has never received a college diploma. It is ascertained with 
probable approximation to accuracy that there are 750 voters not 
graduates where there is one graduate. If the chances were equal, 
there would be 750 times as many non-collegians, but of the con- 
gressmen, 32 per cent, are collegians and 68 per cent, are non-col- 
legians. There are only 2]4, times as many non-collegians as col- 
legians, where, if the chances were equal, there would be 750 times 
as many, showing that the chances of the average man not a col- 
legian are increased 353 times in the case of the collegian. And 
similarly, the chances for election to the senate, 644 times ; the vice- 
presidency, 750 times; to the presidency, 1,391 times; to the supreme 
court, 2,000 times ; to the chief justiceship, 3,600 times. And these 
figures must be largely increased when we count out in the race 
from the start the large proportion of college men who foredoom 
themselves by their idleness and unscholarly qualities to compara- 
tive failure. 

Now that the teaching of language is valuable for the purpose 
of giving mental power quite apart from the use made of the knowl- 
edge gained, is shown by the fact that these results proceed from 
the colleges and universities of America and England, not as they 
are now or are becoming, but as they were twenty and more years 
ago, when the men now in power in all public life were gaining their 
equipment for their life work, and then the ancient classics still had 
their ancient prestige. The college, as it was when Phillips Brooks 
was graduated from Harvard, and President Northrup was gradu- 
ated from Yale, was a very good instrument for developing power. 
It may be seen, too, that the study of Latin, and, still more, the 



229 



study of Greek, call for rapid and exact comparison, analysis, and 
generalization, for the habit of acquiring swiftly many particulars 
affecting the correct interpretation of the thought, not failing to 
take due account of every letter, of every accent, and of every quan- 
tity, else a false note will be struck, a false meaning will issue. 

There are the same mental movements in the interpretation of 
a difficult Greek or Latin sentence where memory cannot act auto- 
matically, where the forms of words are new, and the thought ex- 
pressed is new, as in scientific research — perception, comparison, 
classification — with possibilities of going wrong at each one of 
many points of decision. It should not be thought strange, there- 
fore, that many leaders in scientific research were trained for their 
scientific work by the study of the classical languages. 

Education in school and college finds another value in promoting 
culture as well as power. The chief purpose of the school of every 
grade is, as Mrs. Palmer says, ''not to make a living, but to make a 
life;" to make life happier, better worth living; "not that one may 
have more bread to eat, but that every mouthful of bread may taste 
sweeter." 

Those who conceive of the purpose of school education as limited 
to its utilitarian uses occupy the same level of thought as the farmer 
in Mrs. Stowe's story, who persistently opposed his wife's desire to 
have flowers planted in the front yard instead of potatoes. He 
could see no use for flowers. He thought there was a real use for 
potatoes, and when questioned closely by his wife, his first explana- 
tion was that they were good to eat ; and then as to the use of eat- 
ing, why that was for the sake of happiness ; and his wife's very 
suitable answer was she found her happiness at first hand. This 
was to her the immediate ministry of flowers. 

Who, of all the tens of thousands that during last summer visited 
Copley square, surrounded with its architectural monuments to 
religion, and art, and literature, and science — who, of all these look- 
ing upon the magnificent facade of Trinity church, the noblest of 
American houses of worship, adorned with imposing figures repre- 
senting saints, and martyrs, and apostles, and prophets, and then 
turning and looking upon the front of Boston's great public library, 
with its memorials of poets and orators, philosophers and historians, 
inventors and investigators, could fail to be impressed with the value 
of all things that contribute to impart dignity to life and to exalt 
men's ennobling pleasures? Strength and beauty are there, and the 
highest of all beauties, the beauty of holiness, receives its appropriate 

230 



tribute in that the solidest and most beautiful of these majestic 
edifices is a sanctuary of rehgion. 

It is a worthy purpose of school instruction that the pupil shall 
be able to earn an honest living and have a surplus from which he 
can generously minister to the needs of those less fortunate than 
himself. 

This object may be accomplished and yet the life be of no nobler 
character than that found among the illiterate mountain whites of 
the South. It has its measure of worthiness ; and the same level of 
life may be found in the home of the millionaire, if he has no 
faculties developed for the appreciation of the treasures of art and 
literature that have been lavishly purchased for home adornment. 
It is a higher and worthier object of school instruction to develop 
the powers of body and mind in the direction of making real the 
ideals of strength and beauty in bodily form, and in breadth and 
grasp of mind. It is a still higher and worthier object of education 
to secure moral excellence — the consent of mind and heart to the 
requirements of virtue. A teacher who regards this as beyond his 
sphere may be a good trainer, a good instructor, but is not a good 
educator. It is only as a friend and guide, and inspirer, that the 
teacher can fulfill this function of the educator. Some one has said 
that a religious spirit is not to be taught but to be caught. It comes 
hy spiritual contagion. It is the least part of moral education to 
teach the principles of righteousness. Nothing valuable is accom- 
plished unless the pupil be induced to choose righteousness. That 
the chief emphasis should be laid on the moral outcome is pretty 
nearly universally conceded in theory, but quite too generally ignored 
in practice. The principal of a most widely celebrated boys' school 
•once said to me that he considered the work of a teacher done when 
he caused the pupil to acquire the knowledge deemed essential in 
arithmetic, or in any other subject that he taught. There are multi- 
tudes of teachers whose work proceeds as on this theory, though 
they may not with so surprising candor admit it to themselves or to 
others. Dr. Thomas Arnold's attitude was expressed in these words : 
"For the boys' high character I care infinitely more than for any 
successes in scholarship." In this he is worthy of admiration and of 
emulous imitation. In one of his sermons he said: "Mere intel- 
lectual acuteness divested of all that is great and good is more re- 
volting than the most helpless imbecility." The school may train 
the intellect most effectively, and the result may be a foe to the best 
interests of society, made all the more injurious by his disciplined 

231 



faculties. In the teacher's endeavor to fulfill this function of the 
educator, to train the pupil to moral earnestness, what may be em- 
phasized as appropriate methods ? First, the teacher should be in his 
own feelings and in his activities — not only in the presence of his 
pupil, but everywhere — what he wishes his pupil to be. A dissem- 
bling teacher, who assumes in the presence of his pupils virtues which 
elsewhere he does not practice, will, by reason of his dissimulation, 
weaken the good influence of his exemplary conduct, even though 
he may be successful, as he may not reasonably expect to be, in 
concealing from his pupils the inconsistencies of his life. He must 
love and reverence the truth. He must have a fervent hostility to 
shams, and in the way of discipline he may follow Dr. Thomas 
Arnold's practice, in which Arnold was a pioneer, making manifest 
to pupils his own moral attitude by resolutely separating from the 
school those who are incorrigibly idle, and every one "that loveth 
and maketh a lie." It is the student who offends against truth, by 
the use of false helps in examinations and by false literary preten- 
sions, who is liable to disgrace himself, and the profession of which 
he should be an ornament, and the school whose diploma he carries, 
by plagiarism. 

I do not entertain the pleasing hope that all who have listened 
to these declarations of educational faith will give their assent to 
all the claims that I have made. What I think to be educational 
heresy some will avow as being to them orthodoxy. That all studies 
are equally serviceable for discipline some popular leaders in public 
education would persuade us. That a liberal education is a hindrance 
rather than a help to a highly successful mercantile career is urged 
upon us by Mr. Cram, of Chicago, and Mr. Marsden, of New York. 
That studies should be early chosen for the sole purpose of supplying 
such knowledge as will be needed in one's chosen occupation or pro- 
fession is maintained with plausible sophistries. In the case of those 
who give to any of my pleas adverse decision, like the Macedonian 
soldier who appealed from Philip drunk to Philip sober, I make my 
appeal to the verdict of your later and, I will hope, your wiser re- 
flections, and, for the present, my cheerful hope is that you will be 
as content to have me differ from you as I am content to have you 
differ from me. I thank you all, those whose thumbs are down and 
those whose thumbs are up, for giving me the pleasure of greeting 
you and for your very kind attention. 



232 



INDEX. 



ACADEMY, ENDOWED 17, 35, 38, 41, 121, 211 

Academy, Northwestern 117, 119, 139-140, 211 

Academy supplanted by high schools 106 

Accredited schools. Northwestern 153 

Accrediting secondary schools 91, 94, 97, 98, 100, loi, 104, 109 

Adamson, Principal 123 

Adolescence, period of S3, 80, 125, 153, 160 

Agassiz 24 

Albright, Principal 207 

Alcott, W. A 132 

Alleyn, Edward 119 

Amherst College 221 

Anderson, Melville B , 76 

Angell, President 100, 163 

Arithmetic 66, 67, 81 

Armstrong, Principal J. E 191 

Arnold, Matthew 22, 227 

Arnold, Dr. Thomas 16, 226, 231 

Athletics 10, 68, 164, 197 

Athletics, college 11, 130, 197-199, 219 

Athletics, dangers of 12-14 

Athletics, English 130, 205 

Athletics, secondary school 12, 13, 73, 130 

BACHEIvOR OF ARTS 5, Ci, 123 

Bacon 5S 

Baird, Professor Robert 140 

Bartlett, J. Henry 34 

Bashford, President. 229 

Battershall, Dr 42 

Benson Avenue Grammar School 129 

Berle, Dr . . , 47 

Bible, use of in schools 24, 153, 156, 159, 173, 176, 180, 204 

Bismarck 22S 

Blanchard, President 113 

Boarding schools 21 

Bolton, Professor Fred. E 63 

Boltwood, Principal Henry L 196, 206 

Bonbright, Professor Daniel 140 

233 



Boodin, Professor John E 63 

Boston 16, 18, 68 

Boston English High School 106 

Boutell, Hon. H. S 116 

Briggs, Dean 47, 88 

Brown, Principal 112 

Brown, Professor J. F 98 

Bryan, Principal Wm. J. S 50, 106 

Buck, Principal B. F 83 

Buddha 90 

Business College 70, 72 

Butler, Dr. Nathaniel 16, 26, 34, 43, 45, 46, 155 

Butler, President 36 

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND 118 

Carnegie, Andrew 190 

Cary, Superintendent C. P 55 

Catholicism 157 

Character developed in private school 33 

Chicago, religious training in 177 

Chicago, school enrollment 126, 135 

Citizenship, American 123-5, 136-7, 141 

Civics 188 

Clark, Dr. F. E 42 

Clark, Professor J. Scott 83, 200 

Classics 7, 185, 223 

Coe, Professor George A 36, 37, 145, 153, 181 

Coeducation 39, 45, 80, 185 

College entrance requirements. .6-7, 57, 59, 64, 68, 71, 82-83, 92, 96, loi, 105, 109 

College entrance examination 95, 99 

College graduates, percentage of eminent 53, 229 

College preparation 66 

Collier, Mr 205 

Columbia College 83, 123 

Colum_bus, Ohio 207 

Commercial courses 62 

Conversions in private schools 41-42 

Cornell 83 

Correspondence schools 83 

Cotton gin 23 

Crawford, President 215 

Cultural studies 59, 74, I73, 184, 200 

Cummings, President 215 

Curse of education 21 

Cutler, Mr 177 

DAVIS, DR 226 

Deering, Wm 1 17, 212 

De Garmo, Professor Charles 60, 130 

Democracy, meaning of 32 

234 



Denominationalism in religious instruction 2>7 

Dexter, Professor Edwin G 91, 144, 220 

Dodge, James M 131 

Draper, President 74, 163 

Drummond, Henry 172 

Dulwich College i ig 

EDUCATION, A PUBLIC FUNCTION 35 

Education, early 196 

Education, importance of 53, 134, 218 

Educational associations 210 

Elective system 6, 68, 8r 

Elementary schools 60, 80, 127 

Eliot, President 5, 48, 76 

Emerson, 61, 169, 223 

Emotionalism 146 

English Education Act 127, 135 

English language 140, 225 

English, use of in schools 33, 61, dd, 81, 152 

Ethics 149, 166 

Eton 118 

Evanston 2, 16, 26, 46, 120, 140, 179 

Evanston, school enrollment 126 

Evolution 68 

Examinations 82, 91, 93, 95 

Examining of schools 94 

FAIRCHILD 16 

Family life, decadence of 8, 192 

Fellows, Dr 229 

Fischer, Professor 46, 172 

Fisk, Principal Herbert F 16, 115, 116-118, 119, 142, 209 

Fisk Hall 212 

Florida ^T) 

Folwell, Professor W. W 176 

Foreign language 57, 92, 108 

Fowler, Charles H 215 

Fraternities, High School 193, 198 

Friends' Select School 34 

Fuller, President Homer T 16, 38 

GERMAN EMPEROR 61, 121 

German universities 228 

Gilman, Arthur 17 

Girls, private schools for 17 

Godfrey, Benjamin 17 

Gorst, Harold 21 

Government, study of I3S-I37 

Grammar, time wasted on 66, 81 

Greek 225-227, 230 

235 



Greer, Bishop Coadjutor 36 

Guleck, Luther H 128 

Gymnasia 60, 71 

Gymnasium 31, 173, 217 

HALEY, MISS MARGARET 19 

Ham, Mr 222 

Hamilton, Sir William 75 

Harris, Commissioner 24, 36, ^^T, 157, 223 

Hart, Professor 61 

Hatfield, Professor James T 205 

Harvard 5, 47, 83, 220 

Health, provision for in colleges 22 

Health, provision for in private schools 2>7 

Health, provision for in public schools T'}), 128 

Hero worship 14 

High school, adolescent period 53, 80, 125, 145, 148, 160 

High school attendance 126-134, 203 

High school, college preparatory 57, 59, 71, 79, 84, 92, 95, 99, loi, 106 

High school, co-educational 39, 45, 80 

High school, definition of 168 

High school, elective system in 64, 68, 81 

High school expense 127, 134 

High school, extension of time 69, 82 

High school faults 19-23, 28, 30-32, 39, 46, 72 

High school, flushing school 56-7, 69, 89, 92, 102 

High school, first 68, 118 

High school, industrial training in 171 

High school, moral training in 148, 154, 162, 165, 167, 178, 180, 182 

High school necessary 43, 52 

High school of the future 130, 134, 138, 171 

High school, people's college 69, 84, 135 

High school, physical training 10, 73, 128 

High school, present needs 71, 81, 88, 136, 137 

High school, relation to primary schools 52, 54, 69, 79, 92, 107 

High school, relation to colleges 54, 57, 59, 60, 61, 64, 69, 84, 107, 210 

High school, religious instruction 30, 36, no, in, 112, 

144, 153, 155-160, 162,174 

High school specialization 217 

High school, state support 74, 100, 135 

High school, true function 51, 55, 56, 59, 63, 69, 78, 85, 121, 125, 136, 161 

History 139-140 

History, ancient 66 

Holgate, Dean 208 

Hollister, Professor H. A 105, 178 

Home schools 9, 4° 

Hooker's "Child's Book of Nature" 132 

Hopkins, President 16 

Huxley 24 

236 



INDIANAPOLIS 32 

Individualism 22, 140 

Initiative in private schools 31, 36, 40 

Inspector, High School 94, 97, 98, 100-104, 109 

Iowa 100-103, 105 

Ireland, Archbishop 157 

JACOB TOME SCHOOL 44, 211 

James, President i, 15, 43, 49, 83, 114, 115, 144, 209 

James, Professor J. A 112 

Jenks, Professor 63 

Johnson, Emery R 62 

Jordan, President 45 

Jury system, decay of 124 

Justin, Brother 43 

KING, PRESIDENT W. F 114, i43, I79, 220 

Kistler, Professor 119 

LANGUAGE 7, 61, 92, 102 

Language, foreign 57, 92, 108 

Latin, derivatives in English 224 

Latin, importance of 66, 81, 225-7, 230 

Latin, increase in the study of 60, 102 

Latin, omitted from entrance requirements 71 

Lawrenceville school 42 

Leslie, Principal iii, 209 

Literature 67, 70, 176 

Lockyer, Sir Norman 228 

Lowell, Lawrence 130 

Luther 128 

Lyttleton, Hon. Alfred 130 

MACKENZIE, J. S 162 

Manners, taught in schools 29 

Manual training 7, 88, 164, 171, 221 

Marcy, Dr 132, 140 

Martineau, Dr 88 

Massachusetts 196, 21 1 

Mathematics 67, 92 

Mauck, President 174 

McMurry, Dr. Charles 112, 175 

Merrill, President 208 

Miller, President 170, 202 

Minnesota 73 

Missouri 39, 42 

Modern languages 7, 61 

Monastery, influence of 190 

Monroe, Professor 123 

Moral agency 146 

237 



Moral training izj4, 153 

Mosley Commission 3 

Municipal government 124 

Miinsterberg, Professor 218 

NATURE STUDY 131 

New Hampshire 41 

Newspaper in schools 138 

New York 211 

Nicholson, President 215 

Nightingale, Superintendent A. F 76 

Noble, Dr. F. A 42 

Northwestern Academy 117, 119, 139-140, 211 

Northwestern University 83, 140 

O'SHEA, PROFESSOR M. V 163 

Oratory, School of 137 

Oxford 118 

PATTEN, PROFESSOR A. W i, 142, 200 

Payne 58 

Penn, William 34, 38 

Pericles, Funeral Oration 123 

Philadelphia 19 

Phillips Andover 3 

Plato's Republic 53, 123 

Play grounds 129 

Porter, President 227 

Private schools, advantages of for girls 22-23 

Private schools, agricultural districts 38 

Private schools, Catholic 44 

Private schools, conversions in 41, 42 

Private schools, functions of 17, 26, 45 

Private schools, hostility toward 35 

Private schools, initiative in 31, 2>^, 40 

Private schools, religious instruction in 24, 30, 2^, 41 

Public high schools, see high schools. 

RACE SUICIDE 9 

Ramsay, Principal 96 

Raymond, Dr 27 

"Religion of a Mature Mind" 37 

Religious nature of the child 36 

Religious training in private schools 24, 30, 36, 41 

Religious training in secondary schools.... 10, 36, no, in, 112, 144, 

153, 1SS-160, 162, 174, 201 

Resolutions 142 

Riker, President A. B no 

Rugby Chapel 117 

238 



Rural school 20, 78 

Ruskin 20, 171, 225 

SADLER, M. E 35 

Salaries, average teachers' 190, 203 

Sandwick, Principal R. L 182 

Saxon, derivatives in English 224-226 

School boards 103 

School, English secondary 118, 119, 121, 126 

School, night 72 

School, secondary 4, 6, 10, 217 

Sciences 7, dy, 69, 184-185 

Seaver, Superintendent Z7 

Sectarianism 154-155 

Seeley, Levi 155 (footnote) 

Sewall, Mrs. May Wright 26, 201 

Singing in public schools 128-129 

Socrates 24 

Spalding, Bishop 158 

Starrett, Mrs. H. E 45 

Stearns, Principal Alfred E 3, 49 

Strong, President 50 

Suffrage, universal 125, 189, 203 

Summer schools 8 

Swing, Professor 168 

TEACHER 104, 112, 117, 129, 132, 152, 166 

Teachers, effect of women on curricula 61, 158 

Teacher, freedom in private school 33, 40 

Teacher, methods of a great 24-25, 34 

Teacher, personality 14, 22, 30, 'jd, 177, 181, 188, 206, 214, 216 

Teacher, province 8, 22, 90, 158, 231 

Teacher, resident 130 

Teachers, too many women 182-191, 202, 207 

Technical training 65 

Thring, Edward 21, 22 

Thwing, President 219 

Tolstoi 171 

Tome, Jacob 44, 21 1 

Tompkins, Arnold 154 (footnote), 166 

Tucker, President 42 

Tutoring 8 

UNIVERSITIES, IMPORTANCE OF 228 

Universities, State 65, 73 

University of Chicago 83, 184, 220 

University of Illinois 62, 92, 96 - 

University of Iowa 98, 103 

University, Leland Stanford, Jr 184 

University of Michigan 96, 100 

239 



University of New York 62 

University, Northwestern 83, 140 

University of Pennsylvania 95 

University of Philadelphia 62 

University of Wisconsin 62 

Utilitarian Studies 75, 184 

VOLK SCHUI.E 64 

WASHINGTON, GEORGE 113 

Webster, Daniel 20, iii, 188 

Wells, Professor 203 

Western, Mr 200 

Wharton School 62 

Wheaton College 113 

White, E. E 159 

Whitney, Professor 96 

Whitney, Superintendent 180 

Winchester College 118, 119 

Winslow, Principal 120 

Wisconsin 72,, 153, 180, 204 

Woodward, President C. W 186 

Wykeham, William of 118 

YALE 83 



240 



NATIONAL CONFERENCE 
ON SECONDARY EDVCA- 
TION AND ITS PROBLEMS 




;lBWr'05 



